5 Times Peter Parker Gave Everyone a Science Lesson
by chocolateowl
Summary: And one time Peter wished he never heard of science before, because that shouldn't have been possible, but it was and now his head ached just from thinking about it too much.
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1**

Peter didn't understand why teachers had to make English so _boring_.

Grammar, fine. He could understand why learning about the different types of pronouns would be useful to avoid sounding like Cookie Monster all day. And doing thirty worksheets on the differences between clauses and phrases would be stretching the "usefulness" factor, but at least they were used in everyday speech

But reading about Shakespeare and poetry? There was literally no point to reading a 600 word novel if half his classmates (him included) decided to doze off during class, and especially if those said half frantically looked up themes on Sparknotes at three AM in order to pass the next English exam. There must be some better story about contemporary themes out there, but _no_ , Peter was stuck in class, reading _The Scarlet Letter_ , the most relatable content he ever laid his eyes upon.

Which took place during the 1700s. And featured a lady who believed her kid was sent by the devil and had some sort of love scandal with the not-righteous-anymore priest because her husband was old and boring.

It was the type of plot that teenagers in the modern era, knowing the concept of _divorce_ , would definitely relate to. Not.

Peter could could spot Ned doodling something in the corner of his notebook, his face furrowed in concentration. He was probably trying to finish his new Millennium Falcon that looked a bit like a really bumpy rabbit. Even MJ, history nerd extraordinaire, was casually reading a different book on top of the oh-so-wondrous copy of _Scarlet Letter_ , flipping through the pages while teacher droned on about pearls and river symbolism.

But to his dismay, he could feel his eyes flickering shut, a wave of exhaustion passing over him from the sporadic late-night patrols that lasted nearly entire nights. With the combination of the teacher's monotone voice and the warm spring air that signaled the near arrival of summer, he slowly nodded off to a tired doze.

Then something his pocket suddenly vibrated abruptly, snapping him out of his bleariness as he snapped his head back up with a jolt. He could hear a couple of titters around him, as the teacher stopped and raised an eyebrow at him.

"Any comments, Peter?" she asked, her mouth turned downwards into a frown of disapproval. Peter felt himself flush with embarrassment as the buzz in his pocket died down, and he quickly shook his head. The teacher resumed reading, her eyes narrowed in a final, silent warning before scanning the thin book lying in her hands.

MJ was looking at him amusedly, while Ned mouthed, "Tough luck," with a glint of laughter in his eyes. Peter just rolled his eyes at both of them in mock frustration. Of course they would find some sort of humor in his pain.

As he faced back towards of the front of the room resignedly, watching the teacher flip the page meticulously, his phone rang _again_. At this point, he just ignored the phone, highlighting a random paragraph in the section of the book.

A couple of minutes after the buzz died down, it started to vibrate a _third_ time. Either it was a very desperate caller phoning the wrong phone number, or an emergency from May. He couldn't risk if it was the latter, especially since May never called him during the school day. Something about school being important and all, which he couldn't deny, but still. _Adults_.

Luckily, it was near the end of the class and he waited impatiently for the bell to sound. But the phone just keep buzzing, on and off, and on again, and his feeling of unease grew, because a normal person would have just left a voicemail already.

Was it May? It was probably May. She might have gotten into an accident and here he was, twiddling his fingers in class.

When the bell finally rang, Peter hurriedly grabbed his books and rushed outside, feeling the smooth surface of plastic shudder underneath his fingertips. Quickly, in front of his locker, he turned on his phone, only to be met by the unknown number flashing on the screen.

He paused and stared at the screen, the numbers innocently looking back at him. If it wasn't May, who could it be?

A slight tingle of apprehension ran up his spine and tickled the back of his neck, as the phone stopped ringing and rang again, for the seventh time. Of course, it could have just been a very persistent person who accidentally got the wrong number, but something was telling him that he should throw the phone into the garbage and never look back.

So naturally, he swiped the green call button and held it up to his ear.

"Hello?"

A woman's voice answered back. "Hello Spiderman, I-"

He immediately threw his phone across the hall, startled, which probably wasn't the smartest decision considering that his phone was already cracked in a million places. A very surprised MJ caught it as she turned the corner. She must have been walking to the history classroom for her next period.

Unfortunately, he would rather have Ned at this moment, because he was pretty sure the MJ still wasn't quite so sure that he was Spiderman yet, and if there was any time that a discussion about spandex and spider webs were needed, it was now. But Ned had coding next, one of the only classes he had that was different from Peter's, so he was nowhere to be seen.

It didn't help that bubble of panic was rising in his chest, closing in on his lungs so he couldn't properly breathe anymore.

 _Just chill_ , he mentally scolded himself, trying to shove his growing hysteria down a little hole in the sewers of his mind where it belonged.

 _That strange lady over the phone knows your identity!_ A little voice retorted back, throwing its imaginary hands up into the hair and running around in circles. _You shouldn't be calm!_

"Are you trying to kill me or what?" MJ huffed, as she walked closer to Peter, holding the phone in her hand like some sort of weapon. Her frizzy brown hair was tossed to the side in a messy ponytail, framing her face like an angel that was going to murder him. If it was any other time, Peter would have absentmindedly thought about how pretty she looked when she was mad, with her brown eyes glinting dangerously bright.

But he was too busy worrying about the consequences to the strange lady knowing his secret identity, because this meant that if she knew, anyone could have access to that information. They would know that he went to Midtown School and would hunt down all of his friends and classmates, so everyone he cared about would be under the risk of fire. It would be just like Liz, where it would be all his fault, _again,_ and his suit would be taken away because another person knew his identity and he should have been more careful or something like he was around May-

May was in danger.

 _May_ , the person he swore to protect after the night of tears and broken promises, and a lone hand on the shoulder of a body featuring the kind face of Ben. She would be in danger, and it was because of him, like it _always_ was-

He almost didn't realized that he was hyperventilating when MJ put a hand on his shoulder. Her eyes were no longer as intense, but instead softened, like hard taffy melting in the sun, dissolving into sweet stickiness.

"Peter."

Peter crouched down on the ground, suddenly glad that his locker was on the farthest side of the school. There was no one around, since everyone probably rushing to get to their next period class like a normal human. He wrapped his trembling hands around his head and tried to breathe, while MJ worriedly hovered around him. The bell to the next period rang, strident compared to the relative peace in the air moments ago.

"The bell- you, sorry- I," he tried to get out, but MJ quickly shushed him.

"Don't worry about the bell, just breathe first. Calm down."

Peter felt her warm arm gently rest on his shoulders, as he took another shuddering breath in and closed his eyes. After a moment, he spoke again, voice muffled between his legs. "Sorry, bad moment."

"Alright." Thankfully, MJ's voice was soft, and not judgmental, which he was thankful for, as the warmth from her arm disappeared from his shoulders. Feeling the thump of his heart steady slightly, he reached out an arm and pulled himself up against the locker. In front of him, MJ was looking at him with wide eyes, like she didn't know what to make of him after his wonderful breakdown.

Five stars to guilt-driven paranoia, _yay_.

In all honesty, whether he liked it or not, the feeling of guilt seemed to loom behind him more apparent than ever. It was like Ben all over again, but worse because there was nothing he could do. At least in the past, he could pull himself into some semblance of sanity by helping others.

Now, he could _try_ to help, but he did with the Vulture incident, and that didn't work out so well last time because the world was a complicated place and he was just a spider, spinning a small web in the middle of chaos. He might have helped Mr. Stark, but ruining Liz's life was all his fault that he couldn't have changed, and he _wouldn't_ have. Not even if he was given the option to turn back time and redo the mess that happened.

MJ waited a few more seconds for him to sort out his thoughts, before she coughed awkwardly. When he looked up at her questionably, she was standing up with her arms folded across her chest. Briskly, she asked, "What was that?"

Peter winced at the interrogative tone that her voice took towards of the end of the sentence, and she backed off quickly. It was the first time he'd ever seen her actually back down.

"If you don't want to tell me, that's... fine?" Her voice trailed off at the end, as if she wasn't sure that was how to take a step back. It was such a change from her usual confidence, curt and to the point, and Peter couldn't help snorting softly at the questioning pause she made at the end.

She just raised an eyebrow, and Peter shrugged back, a bit sheepishly. "Overthinking sucks."

"Do I have to murder whoever was calling you?" MJ frowned, staring at the phone in her hand _that was still somehow on_. Before he could do anything like dive for the incriminating device and chuck it out the window, she tapped the button to put the phone on speaker.

"If you talk to Peter _one more time_ , I will hunt you down and find your house to burn your gnomes down and use the decimated gnome parts to skewer you to a wall," she spoke into the phone, her voice threatening.

"But the gnomes didn't do anyth-" Peter protested, but quickly shut up when she shot him a glare. "Alright, alright gnomes are secretly evil creatures that I have no idea what they did but apparently they did some-"

" _Peter_." MJ tried to sound frustrated, but the little quirk at the end of her mouth gave her away.

"I like you, kid." It was the woman's voice, tinny from the phone, but her amusement was still apparent. "But I believe there's just a small misunderstanding here. I'm here to talk to Peter about his Stark internship."

Her voice was strangely familiar, and it seemed that MJ thought so too because she frowned a bit before giving the phone over to Peter. "I thought you quit the internship," she muttered.

"I did. But I got it back again a few days ago," Peter mumbled back, turning off the speaker and putting the phone to his ear.

"What's going on with the Stark internship?"

The woman asked, "You remember the wreckage from the Vulture incident?"

Peter involuntarily shivered, remembering pipes and running water slowly dripping down his face. A maze that twisted over his head and trapped him underneath so he couldn't escape and it was so _hopeless_ -

"Yeah," he dully said. "Why?"

The voice was grim when she responded, "It's gone, at the same time a couple of leftover Hydra goons went off the radar."

"And you want me to help." It wasn't a question.

"We're seriously understaffed right now," the woman sighed. "Believe me, I would love to deal with this myself, but backup would be nice."

Which was strange, because Peter knew that there were plenty of trigger-happy recruits in the SI company. At least twenty of them would have given up a thumb and an ear to "kill some baddies," unless…

"Mr. Stark couldn't have sent you."

The woman on the phone didn't respond. Peter sighed, "Wait wait wait, back up a second. Who are you?"

Still no response. Then the woman's voice came back on the phone, still calm, but embroidered with threads of panic. Screams echoed in the background.

"They found it, it's too late." Her voice got fainter, as if she was turning her head to scan the terrain. "At this point, we just need to mitigate the damage. I got Sam to fetch you in a couple of minutes, be on the roof."

The call ended. MJ was leaning in front of him, trying to look inconspicuous, but her interested face gave her curiosity away.

"What was that about?" she asked. Peter just stared at the darkened phone in his hand.

He heard screaming in the background, so even if it was a trap, there was still people getting hurt. And he couldn't just leave people to die, no matter what the circumstance was. If he could stop what was happening, it would be well worth the trouble.

Quickly, he made up his mind. "MJ? Could you tell Mr. Harrington that I've got a family emergency, and I'll bring in a note tomorrow about it?"

Luckily, his Spiderman suit was in his backpack. He was planning on doing some patrolling after school, but he guessed that this would work as well also.

MJ opened her mouth, probably in protest, but one glance at his face, and she must have seen something because she closed her mouth and just nodded mutely. "You owe me one," she sighed and quickly strolled towards the classroom, her backpack slung over one shoulder.

* * *

"You're the Falcon," Peter gaped at the intimidating figure on the rooftop, wings spread wide.

"And you're tiny," the man raised an eyebrow, folding his wings into his back casually. "Do you actually go to school here?"

Peter shifted uncomfortably, feeling the brisk air permeate through the thin fabric of the suit. He opted not to answer, but instead asked, "Where are we going?"

"Where _you'll_ be going," the Falcon corrected. "I'm supposed to be backup for something else right now, but Nat ordered me to bring you to her and you probably heard how she is. Won't take no for an answer."

"I was talking to _Black Widow_? On the _phone_?" Peter stared at him incredulously. No wonder she sounded so familiar.

"Yeah." Sam peered down at Peter even more carefully, frowning. "Do you even drive yet? You look like you're eleven."

Peter tried not to let the indignation seep into his voice as he protested, "I'm- uh eighteen! I'm super masculine and macho."

His voice cracked when he said "macho," and he nearly died of embarrassment as the Falcon started laughing. He clapped a hand over Peter's shoulder and amusedly said, "Still got some growing up to do, eh? Don't worry, I've heard that Captain America hit puberty really late too."

"Mr. Falcon-"

The man interrupted him, "Call me Sam. Mr. Falcon makes me feel old."

"Mr. Sam-" Peter ignored his groan of frustration, feeling a bit satisfied with himself because, well, revenge is sweet.

"-aren't you a war criminal right now or something?"

Sam stiffened slightly, imperceptible to a normal person's eye, but clear as daylight to Peter's. "Unfortunately." Suddenly, it seemed like all the energy drained out of him, and he sighed tiredly. "There were a lot of misunderstandings. People were being idiots."

He flicked out his wings again, letting them expand to their full size. "But we've been taking care of the bad guys outside of town for these couple of months. Don't worry."

His smile was hinted with bitterness as he looked back, offering a hand to Peter. "You'd think that the past Avengers would actually be trusted with all those years of service, right?"

Peter thought about the times when he would hear about gossip about Spiderman throughout the hallways of his school. He thought about walking to school with still-healing broken ribs caused by a patrol at 3 AM in the morning, and listening into conversations that mocked Spiderman.

"He's a menace," they would snicker and whisper, and Peter would hurry by, head down, and heart aching and filled with the same bitterness he saw in Sam's face. "Spiderman? What a freak. He doesn't do _anything_."

So Peter took Sam's outstretched hand.

* * *

"Why are you so _heavy_?" Sam groaned, up in the air, as he tried to adjust Peter in his arms. "For all your tininess, you're like a hippopotamus."

"Or maybe you're just getting out of shape," Peter snarked back.

"Or maybe I'll just decide to drop you," Sam retorted back, before groaning again dramatically. "Seriously though, what do you eat?"

"Apples. And walnut date loaves," Peter said honestly, staring at the ground drifting below them, as Sam soared through the air gracefully. No one seemed to look up at the sky anymore, eyes fixated on their phones as they paced the streets to whatever their destination was.

What if Sam accidentally let go? What if he slipped and tumbled through the air helplessly to land in a broken heap on the ground?

He quietly voiced his concerns to Karen, who answered, "At this height, you'll end up with a broken back."

The unspoken message passed through them, brought by rumors and the curt way Mr. Stark mentioned that his best friend's back was messed up. _You'll end up like Rhodey_.

Mr. Stark was going to _murder_ him when he finds out that he was spending his time hanging out with his ex-besties who turned to vigilantes.

"Don't like heights?" Sam asked after a brief moment of silence. Peter shrugged, or shrugged as much as he could with an arm wrapped around his chest, before muttering, "Not my favorite."

Sam glanced down at him apologetically, before saying, "We just need to make sure that we aren't dropping you too high up. Too much speed isn't going to be good for your bones."

"Acceleration," Peter sheepishly corrected.

Sam leaned towards the left to bank across the air. He asked absentmindedly, "What do you mean by that?"

"Well- um, speed doesn't really affect a person. If it did, then people on planes wouldn't be able to survive, because most planes go up to really big speeds. It's just the acceleration, how fast a person stops or moves that causes stuff to happen," Peter mumbled.

"Please don't sound like Ton-"

"And then Newton's first law of motion with inertia would make it so that the force stopping the object would have to be equally exerted as the force when it was falling down. Then the person would hit the ground at maximum velocity and break his skeleton because the force causing it to accelerate in the negative direction would be really high since velocity is a vector so there's direction and magnitude. Stuff like air resistance won't really matter until the person reaches speeds up to terminal velocity and then it'll be like 200 meters per sec-"

"Shit, you do sound like Stark, Spidey," Sam said, sounding suspiciously entertained. "Do you think anyone knows that you're a mini-Stark yet?

"I'm a what?" Peter gaped at him, words momentarily forgotten.

"A mini-Stark," he impatiently repeated. "How much people know about you being all science-y?"

"Uh, why?" Peter asked nervously, because that gleeful look on Sam's face didn't seem to mean anything good.

Peter could almost hear the grin in Sam's voice when he said, "Because we've got some minds to break if you ever meet the rest of the ex-Avengers."

"... You're weird."

"Thank you," Sam said, sarcastically. "Being called weird by a kid who sounds like he's still going puberty is on the top of my list of worries."

"WOW."

* * *

 **Just to get this straight, this is going to be a weird 5-1 story. Everything's going to flow as if all the chapters could just be from one story, but I'm still going to follow the 5-1 format. It's going to be fun, I've got everything planned out, and hopefully winter vacation would give me enough time to finish this, or at least, get a huge chunk of this story done.**

 **To those who are curious, I actually got bored and calculated the velocity that Peter would have hit the ground when falling off the Washington Monument in Homecoming. 105.4 m/s, which is actually half as much as what terminal velocity of a human would fall. Btw, terminal velocity just means the maximum speed a person can fall, because air resistance equals the force of gravity, and yea... science stuff!**

 **Merry Christmas to you all, and hope you all have a wonderful holiday break!**


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

"You're the Black Widow," Peter couldn't help but gape at the shadow slinking out between the buildings. Despite the blond hair, it was obvious that is was _her_ with the way she smoothly strolled up to him, as if she was the predator and she knew it.

"So I've heard," Black Widow said amusedly. "Call me Natasha."

"Nuh-uh, Spidey here has a hard time using real names," Sam called from above, already swooping away. The smirk was still apparent in his voice, even though his words were faint. Peter pretended not to hear him, and instead opted to keep staring at the live-version of the person he'd watched on television when he was younger.

"You're so _cool_ ," he breathed out. "I mean, I've seen you fighting in that airport, and you were awesome then too, but I can't believe I'm-"

He quickly trailed off, embarrassed. Yeah, sure Falcon was an Avenger, but Black Widow was one of _the_ Avengers, with the Hulk and Thor and all. It was almost as cool as when he first saw Mr. Stark trying to flirt with his aunt, which was also _weird_ but still.

"You done?" Natasha asked, her face still expressionless despite the slight upward quirk in her mouth.

"Yeah, yeah, Ms. Natasha, sorry," Peter sheepishly bounced on his toes. "How did you find me?"

"I was there when Stark tried to recruit you," she said. "Wasn't too hard to connect the pieces."

She glanced around the wall. Peter followed her gaze to a large building, separate from the rest of the apartment complexes. The building was made with the same red brick as the rest of the surroundings, allowing it to blend in. What was creepy were the shadows that seemed to cling to every surface of the building.

"This was an old warehouse from an obscure company," Natasha whispered. "It's been abandoned for a while now, and I've tracked the thieves here."

"What do we do?" Peter whispered back, watching as two normal-looking guys strolled out of the building, carrying huge cardboard boxes.

"Destroy all the weapons," Natasha said. "And if possible, disarm any thug you see, but you can leave those up to me also. Let's go."

She silently faded into the shadows of the buildings. Peter quickly climbed up the side of the buildings and swung near the central warehouse. As he approached, he spotted Natasha suddenly appear behind the two men that were walking out. He took that as the cue to attack.

Immediately he swung into a window, and shattered the glass. Inside, a person was shoving in glowy-looking tech into a box. She looked up, startled, before pulling out a pair of fancy-looking guns and shooting.

Peter couldn't help but yelp as he quickly dodged the familiar purple flame spraying out of the gun. "You have really bad aim," he called out, flipping to avoid another blast of purpleness. "Maybe you can put that down and let me web you up? It'll be fun."

"Shut up," the woman snarled, her brown hair curled up on her face like demented branches on a dead tree. "You have no idea what you're dealing with."

"You're no fun," he sighed, before knocking the gun out of her hand and webbing her up. "That's just what the typical bad guy says. At least you could try some new catchphrases." Quickly, he crushed the gun before hopping down the stairs.

Already, Natasha was kicking ass, doing complicated-looking acrobatics and shooting people in the head. Dozens of fallen thugs lay around her, like a complicated needlework of corpses and death. He stared at one body too long, noticing how much fear the dead man's expression held and the strange way his neck was twisted to one side.

He shivered, and looked away, choosing to web up the other criminals dancing around Natasha with daggers covered in bright blue symbols. She didn't stop to thank them, already spinning around to catch another person's dagger aiming straight for her back.

"This is a _small_ mission?" Peter couldn't help but call disbelievingly across the room.

Natasha knocked out the other person who was behind her, before yelling back, "Wasn't supposed to be this much people. _Stay back_ , or Stark will have my head."

"Roger that," he answered back, flipping across the rooms.

Peter ended up swinging from ceiling to ceiling, providing backup whenever Natasha needed it (which wasn't often). He listened to Karen's advice to web up the weakening structures in the building, supporting falling beams with mountains of web until he almost believed that the whole building was 70% made up of webs at that point.

Every time he saw a the vacant look of a dead body gazing at the ceiling with glassy eyes, he averted his attention to another more troublesome person charging at him. Who was alive, and very un-dead. He had no idea how Natasha could kill so efficiently, with so little thought to what she was doing.

Another bullet flew through the air, catching the person in front of him dead center in the forehead. Peter couldn't hold back a strangled cry of horror as the man toppled backwards, eyes still captured in that snarling glare that didn't end.

It was a bloodbath, and he wasn't ready for all the blood, which was probably stupid of him, but he just couldn't stand to see the life drain out of a person's face, like water swirling down the sewers.

He knocked out another person unconscious, still slightly distracted from watching the former man die in front of his eyes, so he didn't notice another person sneaking up behind him. His spider-sense buzzed, and he could hear Natasha roar, "Your back, Spiderman." But before he could turn around, something stabbed him through the suit.

He twisted around, catching the woman on the jaw and watched her fly through the air until she hit the wall with a sickening crack, but the damage was already done. He hazily lifted up his arm to see a needle sticking out of it, long and shiny, and so very menacing. It was just like the needles from the movies that doctors used on dying patients to inject something.

Fear enveloped him as he frantically pulled out the _thing_ from his arm. Darkness started to spot his vision, and he couldn't help but collapse to his knees as his spider-sense went haywire. It was like pinpricks were everywhere, and he couldn't focus, couldn't breathe without smelling the thick scent of blood.

He could only feel terror and the need to _get out, please someone GET ME OUT_ as the colors swam before his face. The last thing he saw was Natasha's unusually horrified face among sea of fallen bodies until even that blurred into unrecognizable shapes.

He felt someone pull him roughly across the floor and that was it, because the buzz swallowed him up and he felt nothing more.

* * *

He woke up to the sound of dripping water, and thick metal chains wrapping around his body. On the floor, his mask lay, crumpled. It was so cliche that he couldn't help but snort hysterically at the sight of rusted metal bars and a damp cell. Because of course he was kidnapped, it was like every other "bad guy versus good guy" scene that movies tended to have.

The chains were strong, almost unnaturally so. He couldn't tug them off, and he almost began hysterically laughing again because _of course_ they couldn't. It would be too easy if they could.

"Peter Parker."

A voice emerged from the depths of the stupid dungeon, and he couldn't help the fear that swamped him because seeing the person would make it so very real. He didn't know what to do in situations like this, and he wanted to _live_ and see MJ and Ned and May again but he didn't know and the person was coming-

"Spiderman. Tony Stark's intern. So much interesting aliases you got there.'

The voice was smooth, almost mockingly so. His spider-sense rang in warning, a fire alarm in a fire that he couldn't run from.

"You weren't our main target," the voice came close, aided by the falling steps on the stone dungeon. "We were hoping we could get our hands on the Black Widow, because she obviously knows more information than you. But you were enough, and I know when to cut my losses."

Peter was so _screwed_. If they were planning on doing whatever they were doing to Natasha, there was no way he could get out of this. Natasha had ages more experience, and mountains of badassery that he didn't have, and he couldn't do this, he couldn't calmly sit there hearing the voice come closer without any control.

The man finally appeared from the shadows, with a strangely familiar face that Peter _knew_ , from the past when Mr. Stark appeared in the news arguing about helping world peace against Justin Hammer. The video was on the internet everywhere for a couple of weeks, as a flood of conspiracies were made about the congressmen.

"Are you that senator dude?" he gasped, staring at the thinning blond hair atop his head and the cold scowl he was wearing.

The guy's face was so annoyingly _smug_ as he drawled, "Yes, I'm Senator Stern."

"I don't understand," Peter said quietly. "You're a congressman, you're supposed to want to protect the country not, not kidnap random people and-"

Vaguely, he remembered another news article that appeared after the chaos caused by top secret agent files being revealed to the public. Something about a congressman being arrested for treason.

"-and wait, you decided to be part of HYDRA? _Why_?"

His eyes drew to the strange device in the man's hand, two loops on a stick. Faintly, he heard Senator Stern's response.

"People are out of control. You can see that with Stark, and his blatant disrespect for the government," Stern spat out. "It's too lax nowadays. People have too much _freedom_ , too much liberty to do whatever they want to do. It's a disaster, and HYDRA's trying to fix it."

He was standing by Peter now, so close that if Peter kicked his foot out, he could touch him. He tried to shrink into his seat, but he couldn't move, and another wave of fear swept over him as Stern held up the device.

"This is TMS," Stern gloated, his face so triumphant that it stank of self-entitlement. "It's the new version of mind control. I learn about your secrets, and you die. Simple."

"That's Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation?" Peter stopped struggling, and confusedly tilted his head towards Stern. "Do you know how it even works?"

"And you do?" Stern frowned, the device still hovering in the air.

"It's a machine that uses magnetic pulses to control the electrical impulses of the brain. It's not really mind control, per se, because they haven't really discovered to make it that powerful yet, and I'm pretty sure HYDRA doesn't have the tech for that yet. But I mean, if you want to use it to activate certain parts of my brain and try to cure my nonexistent depression and stuff, that's fine with me."

If possible, Stern's frown got even deeper, "How do you even know this?"

"There was this video by Neil DeGrasse Tyson, who's a really smart science guy, and he made a documentary on mind stuff. I kind of watched that," Peter mumbled sheepishly.

A pause. Strangely, Stern didn't put down the device.

"Maybe you can put the wand-stick thing down and we can go on our merry way?" Peter asked hopefully.

"You're correct in that it doesn't directly control minds," Stern conceded. "But this device isn't supposed to control minds _directly_. It's used to increase fear, overstimulate parts of the brain like the amygdala. All your fears? It's magnified."

His head flashed back to the scene on the hallway floor, seemingly so long ago, but just from this morning. But this time, MJ's hand wasn't here to guide him out of his panic.

No one was here.

Peter eyed the machine warily. Softly, he said, "It's supposed to convince me."

"Exactly." The smug tone was back into Stern's voice. "You know what's even better about this machine? It doesn't just create fear, it emphasizes all your pre-existing issues and turns them into something bigger."

"So?" Peter couldn't help the slight quiver in his voice, but he held his head up high. From the irritated glance that Stern gave him, he didn't like that too much.

" _So?_ Parker, that makes all the difference. You'll be broken by your personal issues, something that targets you intimately. It's not just fear, it's also _you_."

"Well luckily, I don't know anything." Now Peter was just rambling, but Stern was getting that device way too close to his head for his liking. "There's no point in this, I'm not even part of the Avenger. Could you just let me go or something?"

"You think this is just for information?" Stern drawled. "You're Stark's intern. Even if I don't get information, do you know how _satisfying_ it'll be to watch you wither before my eyes? I'll destroy him, like he ruined me."

Before he could stop himself, Peter muttered, "Why don't you just kill me then?" He quickly backtracked. "I mean, you don't have to kill me, because that would be pointless and stupid. But why go through all of this?"

Stern smirked, "I need to record you screaming so I can then send it to Stark, along with your dead body."

"You're insane," Peter hissed.

"Kid, it's called revenge," Stern said, smiling. "Face it, you're not getting out of this alive."

He lowered the device, and pressed the button. The device started to click, a strangely menacing sound in the echoey silence of the room.

At first, Peter didn't feel anything. But slowly, he could feel the fear start to trickle through his body, like a pattering of raindrops. It started to grow, turning from a drizzle to a downpour that he could hardly breathe under.

"You don't have to do this," Peter gasped, trying to twist out of the way. But the chains kept him to his chair, and Stern looked down at him with a calm face, still smiling.

"Of course I don't," he said calmly. "But I am, because revenge is a dish best served cold."

And that was all he heard, until the rush of guilt, fear, and horror flooded his body, a hurricane swirling through his head until all he could think of was the terror. He wasn't getting out of this and he was just a high schooler, he shouldn't be doing this but he was and it was _too much_.

He wasn't getting out of this alive, and there was so much he wanted to do in his life, to fix things and make things right. But he was so _scared_ , scared of the darkness in the room that reminded him of the twisted pipes with the green glowing eyes of the Vulture. Scared of the fear that was overwhelming him until everything in his head was pushed aside to make way for the guilt and the terror that wouldn't go away.

Liz's disappointed face swam before his eyes, the tears on her cheeks reminding him of the broken things he could never fix. Mr. Stark's accusing voice blended in with the clicks of the device, reminding him that he could have killed people on the ferry, and it was only because of pure luck that they were saved.

In a last ditch attempt, he tried to think how he was _Spiderman_ , and he could do anything. Which included fighting off the stupid TMS machine that was messing with his mind.

 _Do you think death cares if you're Spiderman or not?_ A little voice inside his head whispered.

No.

He was going to die, he was going to die, _he was going to die._

Something broke inside of him, and he _screamed_.

Then the concrete burst into rubble, as a red and gold suit flew into the darkened prison, repulsors lit up with a ghastly blue light.

The voice inside the suit roared, "WHAT ARE YOU _DOING_?"

The fear quickly disappeared, and Peter collapsed in his seat, trying to breathe. The sudden lack of terror was almost as disconcerting as the terror itself as he hazily watched Mr. Stark land in front of him.

Stern backed up, his face paling suddenly. The device fell from his hands, and Ironman crushed it under his feet.

"You don't touch my things," he snarled, smashing through the walls. Stern was backed into a corner, looking like a mouse in front of a very red cat. In the distance, he watched as Natasha gracefully fell down the hole made in the ceiling, with a pair of keys in her hand. She leapt over, and gently unlocked the chains that were wrapped around him.

"These are vibranium," she narrowed her eyebrows at the chains. "They must have been from the prototypes in the box."

"M' fine," Peter rasped, as he tried to get up, but collapsed on the ground. Natasha quietly tutted at him, before lifting him up.

"You were supposed to stay back," she hissed to him.

"Sorry," he weakly mumbled back. Natasha just sighed, and shifted him on her back.

"Hang on, we're getting out," she said quietly.

Mr. Stark's helmet was down when he looked back, and his face of absolute fury and coldness burned into Peter's mind as he watched Ironman lift up a gauntlet to Stern's terrified face. Blue washed over Stern's face, revealing every wrinkle and crevice, and before he could see the repulsor go off, Natasha skidded out a hole in the wall.

He let his head drop on her shoulder, and everything went dark for the second time of the day.

* * *

 **Another chapter, woo! Thank you all who faved, followed, and reviewed, I hope you like this chapter also! I really appreciate seeing comments on what you guys enjoyed, or what maybe to improve on. How do you guys like the character interactions here?**

 **TMS was something I actually had to research for a project for school, and yes, I did chance upon TMS from a video made by Neil DeGrasse Tyson. At first, I was originally going to write about something else (denaturing proteins) but that wasn't as clear cut as this idea, so I switched. Senator Stern was also another thing that I improvised from the original story idea, but it worked well with the plot, so I added him in.**

 **Is anyone else waiting for the Far From Home trailer to finally come out? I know I definitely am, and it's driving me _insane_.**


	3. Chapter 3-1

The first thing Peter felt when he gained consciousness was the soft linen pressed against his face. His head ached like a troll decided to wham a baseball bat against his head, but thankfully, the dull buzzing in his ears was slowly fading away.

Mentally throwing snowballs at imaginary trolls with baseball bats, he refrained from groaning out loud because his ears were beginning to work again, and he could hear loud whisper-shouts that were going on above his head. Someone was agitatedly pacing back and forth, shoes making a soft pattering sound on the ground.

"What are you, stupid or something? I thought you were smarter than that, Romanov." Peter could nearly hear the snarl in Mr. Stark's whispered voice.

Okay wait, what?

Black Widow was being stupid? What in the world was he talking about?

Coolly, Natasha snapped back, "Watch your words, Stark."

"I don't _care_ if you skewer me. I'm asking you, _what were you thinking_ when you decided to bring a kid into a full on Hydra base?" His voice was quickly rising before he quickly dropped it to a hiss. "He not just a stupid minion you could just order around, he's a _kid_ and he has a life."

Oh.

They were talking about him.

Peter's curiosity peaked, because hell yeah he wanted to listen to what two famous superheroes thought of him. He kept his eyes closed, and ignored the slight uneasy feeling at the back of his head. Because at least, as the expression goes, curiosity might have killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back.

"You brought him into a full superhero fight," Natasha murmured.

"And that's not the same," Mr. Stark spat back. "I shouldn't have done that, but we were desperate and I calculated the odds. Nothing would have happened."

"Yet Rhodey happened," she said. Surprisingly, she had no bite to her words, just a tiredness that seemed to etch itself into the sentence. "Sit down."

"And?" His responding words were tightly forced out, laced with bitterness, but a small thud indicated that he still sat down in a chair. He took a deep breath, and suddenly said with a deceivingly calm tone, "I don't see your point. Superheroes and Hydra minions are not the same thing. The golden boy of America wouldn't have aimed to kill."

"We… miscalculated," Natasha said quietly. "It was supposed to be filled with grunts, and it was, at first. But there were too much people to be a side mission like it was originally going to be."

""A trap?" Mr. Stark said shortly.

"The other mission, with Steve, Sam, and Wanda? They were supposed to deal with the main group with the spare vibranium from the wreck."

"The shield prototype."

"Yes," Natasha sighed. "Steve called after and said their mission was a distraction," the words were a bit forced, as if she didn't want to admit that there was a mistake. "If Spiderman wasn't there, I would have…" she hesitated, "... been incapacitated. The building would have collapsed."

A shiver trickled down Peter's spine, and he barely restrained himself from shivering.

"You said that Stern was there," Mr. Stark muttered. "He's an idiot, how did he outsmart you?"

"He didn't," Natasha grounded out, teeth gritted.

"Losing your charm?" he said, a bit waspishly.

Something cracked, and Peter flinched. Thankfully, no one seemed to notice. Natasha blew out a frustrated hiss, and threw something down, probably a broken piece of furniture. "I forgot how much of an ass you could be."

"Love you too," Mr. Stark said with fake sincerity. "But seriously, I'm curious. How did the great Black Widow get outsmarted?"

A pause, and she admitted quietly, "We were low on resources. I had to do everything on a library computer in 2 hours. We didn't have time to analyze the information."

"But even so-"

"He must have had help," Natasha agreed, cutting him off. "But this isn't something out of his capabilities. He's just egotistical and vengeful. It's a dangerous combination."

"Don't look at me like that, Romanov," Mr. Stark snapped back. He paused, then let out a breath and suddenly switched the topic. "The kid's stopped snoring, you think he's up?"

The topic change was so abrupt that Peter did a mental double-take, before feeling indignant. He didn't _snore_. Maybe Ned complained about loud snuffling noises sometimes when he fell asleep, but it wasn't like he actually _snored_.

Natasha calmly said, "Spiderman's been up for a while now." There was a rustling sound, as if she turned around to face him, before she amusedly said, "It's fine, you can stop eavesdropping now."

Hesitantly, Peter opened his eyes, blinking a couple of times to let his eyes adjust to the sudden brightness. He tried to ignore the sudden flush of embarrassment that was creeping up his cheeks when he met the gaze of the two adults.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to-"

"Aww, he's blushing," Mr. Stark smirked at him. But as quickly as it came, the smirk slid off his face like water off an umbrella. His eyes were unusually blank when he asked, "Why did you go with Birdman?"

Peter blinked at the sudden change in mood, and Natasha quickly intervened, glancing sharply at Mr. Stark, as if warning him not to go further. Then she looked casually back at Peter, as if she didn't realize that he was very very adept at reading facial expressions because of MJ's weird obsession to communicate only with her glares.

Absentmindedly, he wondered what would happen if MJ and Natasha might one day meet up, and he inwardly winced because the apocalypse would be coming a couple centuries earlier than necessary.

"You heal abnormally fast," Natasha said with surprising warmth, bringing him back to the present. "You were supposed to wake up after a couple of more hours, considering how much your brain was overstimulated in such a short amount of time."

A loud screeching noise reverberated throughout the room, and Peter jumped. But it was just Mr. Stark standing up suddenly and pushing back his chair. He strolled towards the huge window on the side of the wall without any comment, arms crossed against his chest.

Peter eyed him nervously, before he shrugged sheepishly at Natasha. "A radioactive spider bit me."

"Not the strangest origin story I've heard of," Natasha mused.

"Sorry kid," Mr. Stark called out from the far side of the room. "That prize would have to go to Vision. You can't beat a purple semi-humanoid robot who had to fight his evil father that tried taking over the world when he was only a couple of days old."

Natasha ignored him, and kept talking to Peter. "You're decent at fighting," She gave him a half-smile. "With a bit more experience, you'll be terrifying to any superhuman, especially with that arsenal you have."

Peter couldn't help the warm glow that spread through his chest at her praise.

She continued, "Would you want to join us some other time? I'll make sure it's safer this-"

"No."

Both Peter and Natasha swung their heads towards Mr. Stark. Peter could only see his back, silent and unmoving, against the sunlight trickling through the window.

Beside him, Natasha opened her mouth, then closed it without saying a word. Her expression almost twisted into something like pity, but quickly shut down before Peter could look at it more closely.

Mr. Stark turned around, and raised an eyebrow coolly at their faces. "What?"

"What do- what do you mean, no?" Peter could feel his heart drop in his stomach. He quickly added a "Mr. Stark." after something in the man's expression darkened, like a stormy cloud ready to unleash a downpour of rain and thunder.

Mr. Stark walked back, and everything about his stride reminded Peter of the day he messed everything up and nearly sank an entire ferry.

"You're talking a break off," Mr. Stark said, eyes strangely dark and without that maniac spark that Peter was so used to seeing. "No patrolling for a week. Do you hear me?"

"What do you mean?" Peter protested, horror flickering in his chest. It was one thing to be restricted from hanging out with awesome superheroes, but a completely different thing to be banned from _patrolling_. "Why? That's completely unrelated from- I don't understand."

"I'm speaking English, right?" His words were so blocky, short. Peter imagined them floating in the air, framed in bold dark letters that stood out sharply against the dim glow of the setting sun. "Stay home. Literally, you've just got tortured. You need to recover before you decide to swing around in some spandex."

A shard slowly dug its way into Peter's chest, and he resisted the impulse to curl into a little ball and dig out that shard of hurt that was slowly making its way through his heart. Because patrolling was his life, his _duty_ , and he thought that Mr. Stark _understood_ him, unlike May. He owed it to the people to keep the streets safe, and he couldn't, he couldn't just not-

"But I don-," his own voice was soft, softer than he would have liked to admit.

Mr. Stark's face softened for a brief second, but then hardened immediately after his eyes flickered towards Natasha, who was half-hidden in the shadows.

"No. And that's final. It's just a week, for god's sake, and you need to take care of yourself and learn something about responsibility."

The words cut into him deeper, pushing the shard of glass into an area of hurt that he did _not_ want to remember. He tried to say something back, argue, _anything_ , but the words stuck in his throat like glue to paper.

Words floated to the top of his mind, an aphorism that mocked him endlessly and chattered in his ear every moment of his life. _With great power comes great responsibility._

Mr. Stark sounded so much like Ben, and it _hurt_. Unbelievably so. He was trying to be responsible, but he couldn't just, what, stand back and let people suffer when he was fine and dandy? How was that responsibility?

Why was everything so _complicated_?

Natasha suddenly spoke up, her voice steady, and so unlike Peter's own soft voice. "Stark, you can't possibly-"

He turned on her with a sudden fury, a blast of anger that was so dense that it almost seemed tangible. Peter almost expected to see the fragile glass vase on the far end of the table to get swept off the table, but the vase stood still.

On the other hand, Mr. Stark did not. He stormed up to Natasha with a sudden quickness that she blinked. In a strange, sort of breathy voice, Mr. Stark breathed out, "You do _not_ dictate my life. My home, my words, my law."

"Stark, _think_ about what you're-"

He interrupted her, his voice sharp. "No, don't tell _me_ what to think. You've abandoned ship, and look, there's _consequences_ Ms. I-can't-be-controlled-by-the-government. Maybe you should face reality instead of running around like a biker gang still pretending to protect the world."

Something in Natasha's face grew brutal, edged with a serrated blade that glinted cold in the fading light of the room.

"Choose your next words wisely," she said.

Mr. Stark's laugh was lined with something that seemed close to hysteria, a harsh discordant note that made Peter nearly jump back in surprise. "Haven't I said enough wise words for the century, Romanov? No one _listens_."

"Because your definition of saving the world also is the very definition of destroying it," Natasha smiled grimly. "Remember Ultron?"

"I'm trying," a frustrated breath out, "to save the world when _no one else_ is seeing the problem. There are- _things_ ," Mr. Stark forced out, his hand rubbing against his face tiredly, "above that are coming, and instead we focus on-"

"We focus on the human things that we can actually fight right now," she cut him off.

"No, we _don't_ , and that's the problem," Mr. Stark bit back. "We-"

It was like watching a bunch of toddlers fighting over a piece of cookie, but instead of a cookie, it was the entire world and their ideals. Shoving away the ache he was still feeling, he spoke up hesitantly.

"Uh, Ms. Natasha? Mr. Stark?"

Two heads swiveled to look over to Peter, and he shifted nervously, because god, their expressions were terrifying. But they were bitter, too bitter to get out of no-man's-land without triggering some sort of huge superhero bomb, and he couldn't exactly keep watching the line fracture even further.

It was also way too late, with the sun below the horizon, and May was probably already panicking.

Crap. He completely forgot about May.

"I appreciate it and all Ms. Natasha, but uh," he swallowed inaudibly. "I was wondering when I could get home."

May was going to _murder_ him.

Mr. Stark sighed, before muttering to Natasha, "I'll deal with you later."

"Excu-"

He cut her off, "You're lucky I disabled all the cameras Ross put in this house. As it is, you're pushing my boundaries, and you're still a war criminal."

"I'm leaving," she responded curtly. "Can't stay, still need to clean some things up."

"You do you," he said. Facing Peter, he gave him a faux smile. "Happy's not home right now, so you'll be hitching a ride with me."

"Wait, no- no I don't want to be an inconvenience, Mr. Stark," Peter protested. "I can just walk home or something, don't worry ab-"

"Kid, first, it's dark out," Mr. Stark interrupted. "Superhero or not, you're like, twelve-"

" _Sixteen_ "

"-sixteen, trixteen, whatever same thing." He stopped when he saw the look on Peter's face, probably something akin to embarrassment. There must have been something, because immediately the harsh lines in his face lessened minutely, and much more gently, he said gruffly, "Doesn't matter, it's not an issue."

"But are you su-"

" _Yes_ , Pete." Amused exasperation this time. "In fact, it'll be an insult to my pride if you don't come."

"Oh okay- er I'll just, go?" Peter mumbled awkwardly. "Down the stairs?"

"No, go out the window," Mr. Stark deadpanned. "Yes, _of course_ go down the stairs. I'll be right there."

Right before he disappeared down the stairs, he faintly heard Natasha chuckle. But paradoxically, her next words were void of any humor. "He's something, isn't he?"

Mr. Stark's reply was too low to be heard, even with his super-hearing.

* * *

Peter did try to follow Mr. Stark's orders, he really did. He went to school, came home, tried not to spaz out while watching the news and imagining the different sorts of robbers that would roam the streets. It didn't help that the Spiderman suit was in his closet, dangling in full sight from the living room.

(He was too lazy to close the door. Whatever.)

Thankfully, people at school school didn't ask too many questions on why he missed the last couple of days. It helped that the flu was currently going around the district, and a few mentions of "I didn't really feel so good," got teachers off his back.

MJ just gave him a weird look.

"I supposed that phone call was from your doctor that somehow managed to be on a first name basis with you?" she said sarcastically.

Ned gaped at him, wide-eyed. "Phone call?"

"Yeah," Peter mumbled. "Family situation, and then got the flu."

"That sounds fun," Ned said, a bit envious. He quickly backtracked at Peter's incredulous look, "Of course, not the I'm-dying-from-the-flu part, but the awesome I-get-to-miss-school part."

Peter shrugged weakly. The "I-get-to-miss-school, yay!" wasn't so fun when it was replaced with a dark, dripping cell-

 _Alone, can't do anything- trapped, please oh god someone-_

He shook away the lingering emotions of _fear, pain stop it_ and grinned without any real sort of emotion. "It was a interesting trip."

It was all mixing together, the Vulture incident and the stupid Hydra imprisonment, and he wasn't sure if he could handle all the emotions. It was like someone got a fork, and scooped out his mind like a plate of spaghetti one by one to only leave the shattered pieces at the bottom.

Deep breath in.

Out.

This whole scenario was just so _stupid_. He got out with hardly a scratch, yet the thoughts tumbling in the back of his mind were still dark, _dripping, no escape, what is happ-_

Ned stared at him for a moment, and Peter braced himself for the onslaught of questions he was not ready to handle. But strangely, after a moment, something in Ned's eyes shifted and he nodded without demanding another explanation.

MJ opened her mouth and closed it. Finally, she sighed, "Is this one of the things that I'm not allowed to listen to that you both talk about? Spiderman business?"

"What?" Peter nearly squeaked, before embarrassedly coughing. In a normal voice, he asked, "What do you mean?"

Did she really find out? Was it really that obvious?

"Well, yeah. It's not like your obsession with Spiderman is a huge secret anyways," MJ frowned, answering his unsaid question, before looking back and forth and Ned and Peter's faces. "Obviously, I still must be missing _something_ , because you both look like you ate a rotten tomato dunked in toilet water."

"No, no, no," Ned's voice was way too high. If Peter decided to plunk him in the soprano section of any chorus section, he would probably fit right it. "It's nothing."

"Uh-huh." MJ responded bitingly. "And I'm the pope of Spain, sue me."

She did leave the topic alone for a bit, for some unknown reason that Peter didn't understand but was infinitesimally grateful for.

When he arrived home, he surprisingly got his homework done early, trying to send the uneasy feeling away. May was still a bit exasperated at him, and it shone through her displeased grimace when she found him and Mr. Stark at the front step together yesterday. It ended up with a couple of thrown spatulas at Mr. Stark and enough apologies to fill up a canister of gasoline to drive all the way to Wyoming.

She wasn't home yet, so he had to deal with his jitters alone, which he was perfectly fine with. May was given the briefest of summaries, enough to sate her curiosity, but _definitely_ not the full picture.

And, if he was really honest with himself, he would rather keep it that way. He didn't want her worrying even more, because she was doing enough of that already with him going on the streets and all, wearing only spandex.

 _Spandex? You're so easy to crush, little spider. Just a twist of fate's fingers, and-_

He found himself gazing at the darkened TV screen blankly, and mentally winced. Even if he wasn't Spiderman for the week, he still needed to get on the streets and _do_ something, or else the empty echoing of his head was going to drive him insane.

Maybe he would do something normal. Like take a walk.

His gaze fell on the Spiderman suit regretfully, before he stuffed a paper bag in his backpack just for emergencies. He wasn't sure if Mr. Stark would be happy if he had to use the suit, even when he wasn't officially patrolling.

His brain helpfully supplied him with facts. _Walking is fun! Don't worry, Queens is totally a safe place where no robbers are, and you'll totally not meet any trouble._

He mentally snorted, before quickly writing, _Just getting some fresh air :)_ , on a Post-it for May to see. Then he slipped out of his apartment without so much of a sound, trying to ignore the feeling of foreboding he was getting.

* * *

 **I am so so SO sorry for the terrible wait. School happened, tests were evil, SAT was even more evil (thankfully, I did fine), and now with AP's coming up, I'm still looking forward to a horrible week of cram-studying. I can't promise either that my updating is gonna get better, but hopefully I'll try to cram in some more chapters.**

 **Wasn't any science this chapter, since this was actually supposed to be part of another chapter, but because it was getting super long, I decided to split it into two parts. Hopefully I'll get the other part out soon, but can't finalize anything yet.**

 **To all of you who reviewed, faved, and followed, thank you guys so much, I'm really glad for some of the points brought up in the reviews since it'll improve my writing, and even more so, I'm extremely glad for the encouragement. Good luck to all of you on all your tests also, and Endgame is coming so soon woop woop, super hyped for that too!**


	4. Chapter 3-2

Not even ten minutes later, he stumbled across some robber hightailing it out of the store, and Bag-Man was born.

Woo. Cue the party hats and the streamers, because he was _so_ delighted by his new ingenious costume design. Not.

The police found it hilarious though. And the robber. And the people inside the store that were being robbed. Hell, even the pigeons seemed to be laughing at him when he knocked the guy unconscious and quickly faded away to an alleyway to take off his stupid mask.

The next day at school, it was all what people would talk about. Ned came up to him, nearly bouncing out of his shoes with excitement. "Did you hear about Bag-Man?"

"Who hasn't heard of Bag-Man," Peter said resignedly. MJ snorted besides him.

"I think he's admirable," she admitted. "He's got guts to take down criminals without any sort of protection. But seriously, his fashion style is extremely questionable."

"You don't say," Ned replied cheerfully. "Do you think he's another Avenger or something? Cause he's _awesome_. Did you see how fast he was? And he must be invincible or something."

"I saw the paper bag on his head," MJ deadpanned. Peter groaned mentally, and tried to pretend he didn't want to sink to the floor and disappear.

"He does seem really short though," MJ mused thoughtfully. "Almost like a teenager. But that would be stupid, because he obviously seemed experienced."

Ned started to say something, but then stopped. He turned to Peter wide-eyed.

Peter sheepishly smiled at him.

"I think I need to go to the bathroom," Ned said loudly. "Right Peter?"

"Alright?" Peter stared at him, and Ned made a weird flailing motion with his arms that didn't make any sense whatsoever.

"And I think Peter wants to go with me, right?"

"Go to the bathroom with you?"

"What's going on?" MJ said, her gaze flicking from side to side, trying to analyze both of their faces. Her eyebrows were dangerously raised, a sign that Peter recognized that she was going to go into full detective mode.

"Peter wants to go to the bathroom with me," Ned blurted out.

"Go to the bath- _what?_ "

Ned glared at him, and it was so unlike the usual laid-back gaze that Ned usually had that Peter stumbled to a stop and quickly switched gears.

"Yeah, I need to go to the bathroom too. And um, with Ned?"

MJ gave him a look, and Peter hurriedly backtracked. "Of course, we'll go to the bathroom separately, and- ew of course we would, that's weird and uh- why are you looking at me still. It's just a typical bathroo-"

"Come on," Ned huffed, before dragging him off.

 _Help me_ , Peter tried to mouth to MJ.

He could see MJ start to open her mouth again, before she shut it, with a _very_ amused expression on her face. "I'll see you both at lunch. Have fun Peter!"

Peter could still see her smug look from across the hallway when he began spluttering in protest. When they turned the hall, and MJ faded out of view, Peter weakly asked, "Why the bathroom?"

"I don't know," Ned sheepishly shrugged. "First thing I could think of."

A pause. Then abruptly, Ned asked, "Why were you wearing a _paper bag_ on your head yesterday? Don't you have the Spiderman suit?"

"Stuff happened with Mr. Stark," Peter winced. "Long story short, I'm avoiding the suit until the week is over."

"But it's just a paper bag," Ned protested. "You need _something_ to protect you."

"It's not a big deal-"

" _Yes,_ it's a big deal. It would be fine if the person had a power like invincibility, but Peter, you're not-" Ned wavered. "You're not bulletproof," he ended with a whisper, almost like he wasn't sure if he was supposed to be announcing it to the empty classroom windows.

"I know," Peter responded dryly.

Ned quickly backtracked, back to his awkward hand-gestures in the air. "I mean, of course you're _Spiderman_ , which is basically synonymous to invincible-kicking-ass-hero-thing, but like," he shrugged helplessly, hands in the air, "it's a _paper bag_."

"Paper bags are pretty sturdy," Peter mused. "Have you seen how much food a person can stuff in one? They're basically indestruct-"

"You can't do that," Ned interrupted him, voice quiet.

"Do what?"

"Do," Ned gestured to Peter again, "whatever you just did. Brush it off. I just- I don't want anything to happen to you," Ned's face was oddly serious. "The whole Vulture incident was so messed up."

"Better me than anyone else," Peter mumbled softly. Ned started, and stared at him horrified.

"No no no, Peter, you can't think like that," his voice started to rise dangerously, wobbling into hysteria. "Dude, you-"

"That's not what I meant," Peter cut him off tiredly. "I would rather get hurt than someone else because I've got the superpowers. They don't. If I end up in a lot of pain, and they live, then I would gladly take that option a hundred times over."

It was the first time he saw Ned speechless.

"But what about you?" he finally said.

"What do you mean, what about me?"

Ned just huffed incredulously. His next words were quiet, hardly louder than the empty buzzing of the hallways. "You need to take care of yourself too."

"Don't worry about me, Ned. Seriously, I'll be fine."

Ned stared at him. "You do know, you were the first person who was willing to complete the Lego Death Star set with me, right? You were my first friend, period." He hesitated, then continued quietly. "I can't lose you."

He left the hallway before Peter could say anything else, leaving him staring at the blank wall where Ned was standing a second before.

* * *

To Ned's displeasure (and MJ's confusion), Bag-Man was still active.

It wasn't even his fault. Every time he went out on the streets, _something_ had to happen. It didn't help that he lived in a relatively sketchy area or that he still went to the dumpsters to check for any fixable tech.

Sometimes he got injured, sometimes he didn't, but it wasn't really a big deal. If he managed to help one more person with Bag-Man's help, then it would be worth any slight injuries he got. After all, wasn't the saying along the lines of "no pain, no gain"?

Friday was the day when everything went to crap.

"Is that blood?" MJ breathed out. She was on the other side of the table, munching on her sandwich filled with way too much leafy greens (in Ned's opinion), and her eyes were fixated on something on Peter.

Peter stopped crunching on his apple, and stared at MJ. "Blood?"

He followed her gaze, and saw a large red stain on his sleeve. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Ned's pale face as he quickly tried to stuff his arm out of view.

"Don't worry about it," he said weakly. "Spilled paint on my arm."

He almost forgot about the incident this morning, where a trigger-happy (or slasher-happy?) knife-wielding maniac decided that it was a good idea to casually stroll into bank and begin breaking down safes. It didn't help that he was slightly woozy from the lack of shut-eye. A night of trying to write DBQ essays basically equaled a night of no sleep, and Peter _so_ regretted procrastinating earlier in the day.

Knives hurt a lot for some reason. Especially getting stabbed by one.

"You don't have art," MJ pointed out, sharply pulling him out of his thoughts. Her signature raised eyebrow was back when he glanced over at her.

"I needed to paint my new robot I'm making in robotics."

"Paint doesn't look like that," she countered, reaching over and grabbing his arm. "Let me see it."

"It's honestly not a big deal," Peter muttered.

" _Let me see it_."

Her voice didn't allow for any arguments, and unwillingly, Peter flipped his arm around and let her pull up his sleeve.

The gash didn't look too bad at first glance, to which he was extremely grateful for. It already scabbed over, and it wasn't up to the stage where it would begin swelling over.

"Alright, you got me. I tripped over my feet and fell on a sharp rock," Peter shrugged, trying to appear dismissive. "Can I please have my arm back?"

MJ just snorted and let him go. "Klutz," she mumbled affectionately, but her eyes were too sharp, too analytical to fit with her words. They were almost as sharp as the knife that managed to get past his guard, and just as dangerous, probing through the thinly wrapped facade he tried to bubble-wrap himself with.

He quickly broke eye-contact with her, and instead pleadingly looked at Ned for help.

"I'm going to the bathroom," Ned suddenly said, standing up. He wouldn't meet Peter's eyes, and instead opted to stare at the tiled cafeteria floor for some odd reason.

"You're not bringing Peter this time, are you?" MJ asked sarcastically.

"No," he said shortly.

He left, and MJ turned to Peter with a hand on her chin.

"If you weren't my friend, I would have made you tell me everything a long time ago," she sighed. "But trying to figure this out is fun."

Judging by the intrigued glint in her eyes, Peter didn't doubt her for one single moment.

"Thanks?" Peter unsurely said.

"You're welcome," MJ said graciously.

* * *

To top the metaphorical ice-cream with the metaphorical cherry, Peter almost skewered Mr. Stark when he returned home. To his defense, he wasn't exactly his fault. There wasn't really a proper etiquette to greet random billionaires breaking into homes.

He was turning the keys in the lock, feeling the solid brass of the doorknob under his fingers, when the door swung open on its own accord. Startled, he swung his backpack around, and aimed it at the intruder's face.

"Hey Pete, I- _woah_."

Mr. Stark quickly backed up, as the backpack just barely missed him by less than a millimeter and landed on the couch behind him. On the other hand, his sunglasses weren't spared. They were swept off his nose, landing on the floor with a sharp cracking sound.

" _Calm down kid_ , it's just me"

"Oh my god," Peter gaped, staring at the slightly disgruntled-looking Mr. Stark. His eyes flickered to the shattered sunglasses on the ground. "Shit, I'm so sorry Mr. Stark-"

The words stuck in his throat as a wave of panic swept through him, filling his veins with a sort of frost that dripped into his chest. He dropped to the ground, and started sweeping the shards of black into his hand.

"I'm so sorry, these were probably really expensive. I really didn't mean to-" The words flew out of his mouth, crushed shards of ice that tumbled onto the floor and refused to melt.

A hand grabbed his arm, warm and so unlike the slush of cold panic surrounding his heart. Startled, Peter stopped gathering the broken pieces.

"It's fine," Mr. Stark shrugged. "It isn't like I have a pressing need to duck tape the lens together and wear them."

He knelt down, swept the rest of the pieces with one hand, and quickly threw them in the garbage.

"I'm so sorry," Peter repeated again, grimacing. He stood up and tilted his own hand, watching the small black pieces slid past his fingers and into the void of the trash can.

"You're good," Mr. Stark patted him awkwardly on the shoulder. As he continued, something in his face tightened, "but there's something else I need to talk to you about."

"What happened?"

"I saw the news," Mr. Stark smiled thinly. "And I swear kid, you're going to give me white hair faster than Thor can drink a keg of beer."

"What news?" Peter stared at him.

"You're coming with me," Mr. Stark snapped his fingers. "Let's go, I already told your aunt." He began striding out of the home, shutting the door behind him.

" _What?_ "

"Chop chop." Already, he was far down the hallway, his voice slowly fading with every couple of steps he took. "You can start talking in the car if you have a strong stomach."

* * *

It turns out that he did _not_ have a strong stomach.

When the car sped through the first stop sign, Peter actually thought he was going to die. Although dying in an awesome-looking Audi with leather seats wasn't such a bad way to go.

He quickly changed his mind when the car made a sharp swerve as Mr. Stark swiftly turned the wheel. His seatbelt was the only thing preventing him from flying out of his seat and through the window into traffic.

"Mr. Stark?" he gasped out, sticking his hand against the car door as another turn appeared ahead of him.

"Yes, Pete?" Mr. Stark sounded suspiciously cheerful as he jerked on his steering wheel the other way, and Peter's head banged painfully against the car window.

"I think you're going a little higher than the speed limit," Peter winced as he watched the little speed mark waver at the 90 mph line. It didn't help that the green signs flashing by had 30 mph written in huge, white, bold letters.

"Just a little higher?" He could even hear the smirk in Mr. Stark's voice without glancing at the rearview mirror. "Then we're obviously not going fast enough."

More like the end of the ride wasn't coming fast enough.

When they finally arrived at the compound, Peter stumbled out the door and collapsed on the sweet, _solid_ grass underneath his arms.

"The ground isn't moving," he breathed in worshipfully, feeling the crumble of the dirt between his fingers and relishing the way that the ground was under his body. Not like the car, where every turn seemed to be composed of metal waves that curved and swallowed him whole in the vast sea of leather and plastic and metal.

"Yeah yeah, kid," Mr. Stark let out what sounded like a half snort, half chuckle. "Let's go, my lab."

Peter stumbled to his feet, trying to ignore another wave of nausea that swept over him. "Your lab?" he breathed out.

He'd never been to Mr. Stark's lab before. Not in the old tower, and especially not in the newer tower.

"Yup," Mr. Stark responded, a bit shortly. He glanced back at Peter, and a hint of a frown appeared on his face before he turned back to the massive building rising from the ground. "I'm going to need to bang on something while we're having our _lovely_ discussion."

"So, what do you think of this beauty?" Mr. Stark proudly opened up his arms to showcase the cement walls and the darkened windows surrounding a circular room. A harsh light from above lit the expanse, leaving the room empty of shadows. There were some metal scraps lying around, but the room was so much more emptier than what Peter expected it to be.

It kind of looked like a storage center, but without the storage.

"It's- smaller than I thought it would be?" Peter stared at one of the gray walls. On it, big childish letters were scrawled in sloppy red paint that spelled _DUMY WAS HEER._

Mr. Stark followed his gaze, and huffed out affectionately, "That's just Dummy. He's just a pile of scrap metal."

"Where are all the blueprints?" Peter couldn't help but ask, running a hand across one of the smooth tables lining the edge of the room. His hand came back clean, without a speck of dust on the pads of his fingers.

" _Blueprints?_ " Mr. Stark sounded so incredulous that Peter swiveled his head back at him.

"Yeah?"

"As in, blueprints with paper? With pencil marks and all?"

"Yeah?" Peter repeated again, confused at the way Mr. Stark was looking at him with a mix of mock horror and real disbelief.

"Friday, lights please. I can't take his ignorance anymore."

"Sure thing, boss," Friday's voice came from above, robotic and yet, filled with something so much more, just like Karen's voice. But before Peter could comment on it, the walls started to move, and all thoughts fell from his mind.

"What the-" his voice died out as the cement walls retracted onto themselves, leaving behind sheets of metal. Holographs glowed to life, blue flames spinning and undulating until they formed into complex designs and scribbles of sketches. The harsh light dimmed into a soft yellow glow that washed over everything.

He didn't know that his mouth was gaping open until Mr. Stark mimed a fish out of water at him. Quickly, he shut his mouth, but didn't let the embarrassment get to him because there was _so much to see_.

He started to spin in circles, staring at the Iron Man suits that replaced the darkened windows on the walls. One of them caught his eye, a shorter, more slight one that-

"Uh-huh, nope you aren't looking at that one now," Mr. Stark waved a hand at the suit with a black spider emblazoned on the front, and the lights went out on that display case, leaving only darkness.

"Was that-"

"Yes, but we've already established that, you're only using that one in either extreme circumstances, or when you're ready to join the Avengers."

Peter lingered on the darkened display case for a couple of more seconds wistfully, before bounding over to one of the holographs.

"What's this?" He couldn't help but excitedly jab at the holograph, watching it spin around and around.

"That's called genius," Mr. Stark called from the other side of the room, pulling out some random supplies and lying them on the table.

"Lots of modesty also," Peter grinned back at him, before looking more closely at the model.

"You know, I'm still supposed to be mad at you," Mr. Stark sighed, a hint of amused resignation in his voice. "But if you keep sniffing around my lab like a hopeless puppy, how am I supposed to do that?"

Peter shrugged. "Stop making your lab so cool then," he cheerfully answered. He ignored Mr. Stark's scoff, and opted to stare at the model's strange, ball-like structure.

"Is this some sort of alloy for your suit?" Peter twirled the model around with a finger, watching the structure twist in the air like a strange three-dimensional dream-catcher.

"Advertised as gold-titanium alloy," Mr. Stark said. "Do you know how many idiots think that this beauty is iron? I've had so many magnets waved around my face that it's been ridiculous."

Peter narrowed his eyes at the hologram. The atoms seemed to be the same size, which meant-

"Wait, advertised?"

Mr. Stark said, "Yup. Why?"

"Obviously you don't use pure iron for your suit, because that bends too easily." Peter mused. He swiped around the model again, studying the atoms. "But alloys are a lot more stable from the nonmetal atoms structured within, so I'm pretty sure your suit uses those. These atoms are the same size, so they're probably part of a substitutional alloy.

He tilted his head a bit, trying to get a better view of the sizes of the alternating atoms. "But I'm not too sure. Gold-titanium should have a different model, because titanium atoms should be smaller than gold atoms, so the atoms shouldn't be around the same size. Maybe something more towards an interstitial alloy?"

He turned to Mr. Stark, who was staring at him with a raised eyebrow. And maybe MJ's had him a bit too well-trained, because panic bells started to ring in his head. A raised eyebrow from MJ meant danger because she was somehow going to slaughter you with something weird like a blade of grass.

So it kind of was expected when he started to blather on again, because yeah, why not, raised eyebrow equals a no no.

"But to be honest, I don't really think that the size would cause the gold-titanium alloy to be an interstitial alloy because usually that's with atoms that drastically differ in size, like carbon and iron to make steel. Either way, I always thought that there was some sort of carbon allotrope in the suit because carbon nanotubes are _awesome_ and stronger than most other metals, or maybe even some sort of unraveled buckyball, even though I have no idea if that even is possible, but that would still be so so cool."

He quickly glanced back at Mr. Stark and- oh no, the raised eyebrow somehow rose even higher.

"But yeah, uh, it could always be the gold-titanium alloy, even if the model is weird, I just thought that maybe you meant by 'advertised' as just calling it by some other random name because yeah I just-"

Mr. Stark snorted, cutting off his increasingly jumbled mess of words dog-piling over each other. "Kid, don't apologize for being smart."

Cue spluttering from Peter.

A slight grin started to stretch over Mr. Stark's face. "Actually, every person I've mentioned "gold-titanium alloy" to just ran with it, which probably means I should fire them all and have a million Spidey-boys take their place after I finish making a cloning machine."

Peter blinked. "Wait so- I'm right?"

"No kid, my suit's obviously made of iron," Mr. Stark huffed. " _Yes_ , of course you're right. The suit's made out of a titanium-nickel alloy, also known as the badass nitinol. Gold-titanium just rolls off the tongue though, and there's no harm in making something sound fancier than it actually is," he threw a quick grin at Peter.

He strode over to the hologram and swiped at a few floating buttons. "Though, seriously kid, I'm most impressed that you figured this out." He stepped back a few paces, and gestured for Peter to take a closer look at yet another blue awesome floaty thingy. This model was similar to the last hologram, but instead of a three-dimensional block of atoms vibrating close together, a sheet of hexagons shone in the air with a soft blue light.

"Do you know what carbon allotrope this is?"

The hologram seemed to be incredibly thin, thin enough to disappear when Peter tried to look at it from a ninety degree angle. Hexagons usually indicated the presence of graphite. But this model was flat- not the flat that graphite was, with multiple sheets of carbon sliding past each other, but a more of a two-dimensional flat that hardly seemed to even exist.

So if it wasn't graphite, could it be- "Graphene?"

"Exactly," Mr. Stark nodded. "I cover my suit in layers of graphene to reflect the force from any sort of bullet. You'd think that people would wonder how the suit didn't just disintegrate under a barrage of bullets, but," he shrugged, "they somehow just think the metal absorbs everything."

He swiped his hand downward, and the glowing model disappeared in a flash. "You're literally the first I've heard to even consider that this suit could have been made of carbon, not metal, which again, is impressive enough to have you delegated to smart-idiot rather than the common-crowd idiotness."

He huffed something suspiciously close to a laugh when Peter made a sound of protest. "And to think that I was supposed to bring you down here to yell at you."

"And let's keep it that way," Peter flashed a cheeky grin before flipping through more of the material holograms. He stopped before one that seemed to glow with a darker purple light instead of the soft blue.

"Woah, what's this?" he breathed out, staring at the purple veins running through the structure.

"That, my friend, is a pet project of mine," Mr. Stark said. He winced almost indecipherable. "Or at least, was a pet project of mine. It's on hold right now."

"It's purple!"

"Yes Pete, I have eyes too," Mr. Stark dragged his hands inwards, and the hologram collapsed into a tiny pinprick of light, too small to observe. "The purple's from the kinetic energy stored from vibranium."

He turned to face Peter, with a flash of bitterness in his face that passed by as quickly as a gust of wind pushing away a cluster of gray clouds. But before Peter could ask, Mr. Stark clapped his hands abruptly. "Well, that's enough procrastination. Kid, we really need to talk about that new hobby of yours."

He stared to stride towards the opposite side of the lab that seemed more mechanical, filled with sheets of metal and hammers, and Peter would have followed him across, but something caught the corner of Peter's eye.

The purple glow wasn't just purple. There were glints of silver reflected across the glass windows showcasing the suits, hints of impurity in an otherwise pure purple glow.

Peter crouched closer to the shrunken-down hologram. It couldn't be vibranium, because he saw Black Panther's awesome suit close-up, and if anything, there should be glints of black if the material was messing with the purple light.

He looked up to see Mr. Stark walking back towards him. "I swear, I can't be dragging you all over the place," Mr. Stark's voice was slightly tight. "I mean, I could take a leaf out of Pepper's book and try to drag you around, but her powers literally include bossiness, so I don't think it'll work anyways."

The worn look on Mr. Stark's face seemed etched onto his face at that moment, and a bubble of guilt rose up in Peter, because there was something going on, something that told him to not push the button even further. But the mystery was too attractive, too mystical and alluring to back down, and one more question wouldn't hurt anyways... right?

So he blurted out in a whisper, "Is that an alloy also?"

Mr. Stark froze. No eyebrow raise this time, but Peter wasn't sure if that was a good or bad thing. He faced the model again and expanded it, gesturing to the atoms that were vibrating in place. This time, it had to be an interstitial alloy, because the alternating atoms were definitely contrasting in size.

"These atoms are super different from each other, and there's an awesome silver glowy thing also, so there has to be some other element in the mix." Peter excitedly turned around. "Who is it for?"

Mr. Stark stretched his lips into a thin smile. "Was working on this for Spangly-Pants and his spangly shield."

The bubbling words quickly died in Peter's throat.

Mr. Stark waved a hand at the ceiling with a long, long sigh, as if he had too much time on his hands and the only thoughts that ran through his head were filled with doubts and worries and the burdens of the world. "Friday, shut down the hologram please."

"Understood, boss," Friday's mechanical voice filtered through the ceiling, a bit softer than usual. The hologram disappeared, leaving behind a hole in space that seemed to suck in all the light from the other twinkling holograms.

"It doesn't matter anyways," Mr. Stark's voice pierced through the suddenly thick air. His eyes were bitter again, but this time, there was no gust of air to blow the clouds away. "I couldn't get the proportion of iron to vibranium right and everything just blew up from the instability from the vibranium, and well, shit happened before I could find anything useful."

"I'm sorry," Peter managed to say, his voice small. "I didn't-"

"You didn't know." Mr. Stark interrupted, and Peter could see the bitterness sink back into his eyes again, leaving behind a sort of pained acceptance. "Not your fault kid." Something more lively flickered back into his gaze again, more exasperated and sharp, and more like the Mr. Stark he knew. "But the stupid bag costume idea kind of is. I mean, which superhero runs around with a paper bag on their head?"

 _Oh crap_.

* * *

 **So uh, hi! Dang, it's literally been almost an entire year- I am very sorry about these really random update times and terrible waitingness. School as always, has been awfully busy, with 7 APs and whatnot, 8 kids to tutor, 2 clubs to run, and college apps to do and well, yeah! Life has just been insanely busy, and I'm really sorry for leaving you all waiting. I do appreciate the support though still from the reviews, and it's still crazy to see people favoriting and following this piece, so seriously, thanks to you all.**

 **This is the second part of the chapter I left off with, and here's all of the science jargon I so neglected from before! Tbh, I just wanted to add in the carbon part because buckyballs! Buckyballs is just such a cool name for an allotrope, and I thought it would be kind of funny to add it in, especially since Marvel has their own Bucky. The scientific basis behind the different types of alloys and stuff is all technically correct also, but if I'm off in some aspects, please don't sue me. xD**

 **I searched up what the Ironman suit could have been made of, and tons of sources have said that** **nitinol** **would be the most likely material, a titanium-nickel alloy. There actually has been a "gold-titanium" material discovered in like 2016, with 3 parts titanium and 1 part gold, but I wanted to stick with the analysis that most people have done, and plus, technically Ironman wouldn't have known about gold-titanium until the "future" so that's basically the reasoning behind all of that.**

 **Can anyone guess what the vibranium alloy was a reference to? :^)**


	5. Chapter 4

"Paper bag?" Peter repeated weakly. "That sure seems like an interesting superhero."

" _Very_ interesting," Mr. Stark said. "In fact-" he ticked off a finger, "-this _very_ interesting hero seems to only catch criminals in the morning or evening. As if he was busy in the afternoon, maybe doing something like _school._ "

"Or running an ice cream truck," Peter offered. "That way, he doesn't have to use his paper bags because he would just eat ice cream. And ice cream leaks through paper bags."

He tried to keep an innocent expression at Mr. Stark, who just stared at him disbelievingly.

"Or," he quickly backtracked, "Bag Man could also be a she. I'm not trying to hint that all superheroes are automatically guys because that's totally not true and Mrs. Natasha is like the coolest superhero ever-"

Mr. Stark groaned.

"-and maybe she could be selling ice creams and being Bag Man because I heard that Bag Man was a really cool hero and cool heroes usually end up being the same person because I said so and secret identities would make her even _cooler_ -"

"Because Ned would call Happy to tell him that Romanov's back roaming on the streets?" Mr. Stark said dryly.

The words caught in his throat, and he stopped. "What? _Ned_ told you?" A burst of hurt flashed in his chest because this was the sort of secret thing that he trusted Ned to keep quiet about.

Mr. Stark shrugged dismissively. "I would have figured out anyways, but yes. He sounded," a grimace flashed across his face, "panicked. Worried. Almost like a mini Pepper Potts when I told her that I jumped out a building without a suit on."

"You did _what_?"

"Doesn't matter," Mr. Stark waved. "It was badass anyways. Jarvis came, whooshed me up, and ta-da, no Tony Stark pancake at the bottom of Stark Tower." He shook a finger at Peter. "Don't try to change the subject, kid. I know I'm fun to talk about, but this is about you right now."

Peter dropped Mr. Stark's steady gaze and stared down at the ground, where it was much safer, much less accusing than the eyes burning a hole into him from across the room. There were multiple scuff and burn marks littering the ground like beer cans scattered on the ground of a shady alley.

He sighed. "What did Ned tell you?"

He thought he saw Mr. Stark soften a bit out of the corner of his eye, but he didn't dare to look up. He didn't want to see the look of disappointment in his eyes, the look when Mr. Stark gave him when the ferry tore itself apart and the webs were pulled into shreds of pale threads.

Why in the world would Ned tell Mr. Stark about it? It was just a setback, something that would last for no longer than a week, and Ned was supposed to be _the_ guy in the chair, the person who actually understood his responsibility to help others.

"He told me about the stab wound," Mr. Stark said. "I'm pretty sure it was in the middle of class or something, but kid, you got him worried."

 _The stab wound_. It must have been the reason why Ned left so suddenly to go to the bathroom.

"But I wasn't even that hurt," Peter frowned, chancing a look back at Mr. Stark, who was gazing back at him steadily. "It scabbed over in a couple of hours."

Mr. Stark sighed.

"You know," he said, "you remind me of someone." Something in his gaze grew splintered, a piece of metal not yet smoothed out. "It's- it's _uncanny_ how much you..." He paused. Then he turned around. Peter watched him stride across the lab, sinking into a chair nearby. He folded his hands together and rested his chin on top of his hands.

"You know what. I'll tell you a story."

Peter couldn't help but tilt his head slightly in confusion, because _what_? "Um. Sure?"

"There was this… man." Mr. Stark said. "He, of course, was a genius, and devilishly handsome, no doubt." A smirk fluttered across his face for a second before it was wiped away. "He saved New York, dragged a missile into space, fell back down, still alive and kicking."

"Are you talking about yourself?" Peter interrupted, grinning.

"Shush, I'm still telling my story," Mr. Stark said, waggling a finger. "The man came back a hero, superheroes beat the evil Harry Potter knockoff wizard, everyone was happy, bla bla bla. Or at least, everyone was supposed to be happy. But the thing was, that didn't happen." He grinned without any humor.

"The man couldn't stop seeing the massive expanse of space. He went into the hole, and somehow, he came back knowing that there was _something_."

The look in his eyes intensified, capturing Peter in its web-like consistency. "He couldn't rest. He couldn't sleep- _I_ couldn't sleep. Because out there," he flung a hand out, "there could be anything, anything that could appear any second and take away what you loved the most, and if you weren't prepared, then the world just laughed at you and moved on. Pepper nearly went crazy with worry," he nodded to Peter, "kind of like your friend, Ted. And _you_ , every single time I see your expression when you think no one's watching, I can't help but see _it_."

"Mr. Stark, I swear I'm fine-"

"When have you last gotten a full night's worth of sleep?"

Peter stopped. "I-"

He _couldn't_ sleep. There was always fire dripping around Vulture's fallen wings crumpled around him, Liz's accusing face always in the back of his head.

He tried shaking his head. "I don't know what-"

" _Come on_. You have bags under your eyes. You're overworking yourself. It doesn't take an idiot to see that there are things that are haunting you." Mr. Stark blew out a deep breath. "I told you not to patrol for one week, _one single measly week_ , and what do I see? Some stupid idiot decides to go out in a costume called Bag Man, and the idiot's best friend has to call me to let me know that you've been parading around with a paper bag on your head around people with _knives_ and _guns_."

The frustration started boiling again within his stomach. "But I _can't_ just stand by and watch some robber waving a knife around-"

"But _yes_ you can."

" _No, I couldn't_. What was I supposed to do, wait until someone was stabbed?" Peter snapped back.

"No one was in immediate danger. The robber just wanted the money, and of course, you had to stroll in there and to wrestle with him instead of just _calling_ the police. You _know_ how most robbers have a knife for show."

"But if I could actually help out, then that would be better than me not helping out at all. Because I have powers. It doesn't matter if I get stabbed or not-"

"And that's the problem we have here." Mr. Stark leaned back on his chair. "You think that your health doesn't matter as much- nu-uh uh, I still haven't finished my piece," he said as Peter opened his mouth to protest. "Kid, I know what it feels like. You don't want to feel powerless, and then you decide, _oh well, let me just patrol a few more hours_ because you don't want to sit and remember what it's like being carried off by the Vulture, or being stared at creepily by Stern."

 _Pipes and running water slowly dripping..._

Peter gave an involuntary shiver.

Mr. Stark must have seen the slight movement because he grimaced. "I know I'm awesome and all, but you do not want to follow me down this path. Maybe I'll allow you to create killer AI robots or something, and that's fine, whatever." He paused. "Actually, don't do that, but you get my point."

Peter tried not to look confused but he was pretty sure he failed, because Mr. Stark just sighed, and said, " Do you remember what I told you after the ferry?"

Peter frowned. "Didn't you say 'hi Spiderman' or something?"

Mr. Stark snorted. "After that."

"Something about band practice? I mean, I probably shouldn't have quit the trumpet, but I secretly hated playing-"

"You're impossible," Mr. Stark huffed, and Peter was relieved to see that some of the intensity was gone from his eyes. "No, I was saying how I wanted you to be better. _This_ is better. You're just a twelve-year-old kid-"

"I told you, I'm _sixteen-_ "

Mr. Stark just ignored him, "-and you have your whole life in front of you. Me? I've dealt with this and trust me, living your life with this _fear_ , this constant itching feeling that something will happen isn't good."

Peter shrugged.

Mr. Stark sighed, probably for the fiftieth time. "Seriously kid, I thought you had more self-preservation skills than that."

"I mean, there's not really anything I can do about it," Peter shrugged again. "Every superhero's gotta deal with it at some point I'm pretty sure, and I'm not a special case."

He thought he saw Mr. Stark hesitating before he slowly said, "Actually, I think I might be able to help you with that."

Peter raised an eyebrow. "Help with what?"

"You have spring break soon, right?" Mr. Stark said. "Or at least, a break next week? I don't know what you younglings name your breaks."

"Easter break," Peter corrected. Mr. Stark waved dismissively. "Right, the break with bunnies and poisonous eggs. Fun. But are you busy then?"

"No? I don't think so?"

"Great, I'll pawn you off to Barton then. I'm pretty sure Romanov's been blabbing to him about what a sweetheart you are because he's been hinting about wanting to meet the 'mysterious Spider-kid' or whatever, and he's got experience in this sort of PTSD thing. We're not really on speaking terms, but I'm sure he won't really mind if I send you off to him."

"I get to meet Hawkeye?" Peter gaped at Mr. Stark.

"Yup," Mr. Stark had already whipped out his phone and was texting furiously to someone.

Peter hesitated. "But-" He looked around the vast lab space, filled with computers and working tables and pedestals for holograms, and then he glanced at Mr. Stark fiddling with his phone.

Mr. Stark looked up, eyebrow raised. "But what?"

"Ikindalikebeinghere."

"You what- oh." A corner of his mouth lifted slightly before straightening out again. "Never expected to hear that in a million years. Imagine what Pepper would say if she heard that." He cracked a grin. "Probably would think that some alien kidnapped your brain or I had somehow brainwashed you"

Peter tried not to flush too much, but he was pretty sure he failed, from the amused look Mr. Stark sent his way.

Mr. Stark's voice seemed a little bit softer when he spoke again. "You're not bad company yourself, kid. I'm just… not the right sort of person you should be around right now. You need someone who's experienced at dealing with emotions, and I'm not good at dealing with," he made a face, "feelings. They're like allergies. It makes me shiver to even think of it."

Peter snorted when Mr. Stark pretended to vomit. He continued, "Anyways, I'm fine with you messing around with the lab when you get everything settled back, as long as you don't go too touchy-touchy and explode something important."

"You know, that's almost inviting me to explode something," Peter grinned.

Mr. Stark made a swatting motion towards his direction. "Pepper's definitely going to think that I corrupted you or something. But you should probably be going back home, I only wanted to borrow you for a bit. I'm setting up your playdate with Feather Brain right now."

Peter headed towards the door, but before he left, he turned back to glance at the figure illuminated by the phone screen.

"Thank you," he said softly.

Mr. Stark looked up for a second before going back to his phone. "Alright, alright, shoo. I told you, I'm allergic to feelings."

Peter huffed amusedly before leaving.

* * *

"It seems like we meet again, Spidey-kid."

Peter tried not to squeak in surprise, as he opened the door to the apartment complex and a wild Natasha appeared. She was standing in front of the apartment building, right outside the step, looking super cool with sunglasses and a baseball cap. She nodded to the duffel bag sitting on Peter's shoulder.

"You all ready to go?"

Peter nodded. He spotted the battered car on the curb of the street and hesitated.

"Uh, Ms. Natasha, if it isn't any trouble, I was wondering-"

"Stark's out on a business trip," she said amusedly, "but he threatened to dangle me off a cliff if I did anything you. Seems like you got him wrapped around your little finger."

Peter spluttered. "I- That's definitely not true."

"Of course," Natasha smiled knowingly, as she smoothly got into the driver's seat. Peter slid in the seat next to her. "That's why he suddenly transformed into a mother hen. Told me to remind you to put your seatbelt on."

Peter opened his mouth, then decided, he wasn't even going to try to respond to that. He buckled his seatbelt on grudgingly, and weakly asked, "So uh, how's your day?"

She shrugged. "Found some more info on the whole Hydra situation, was called by Stark to drag you to an airport like he decided to make me an underpaid babysitter, and found out about Bag Man."

She gave him a side glance, and he shrugged, embarrassed. "What if I just wanted to try out a new style?"

"Paper bags don't suit you," she said. "Although it was impressive that you managed to take down grown men with literally no protection on. Risky," she added, "but impressive." She looked at his surprised, but elated expression, and quickly said, "But don't tell Stark I said that. Apparently 'encouraging young spiders to be part of the Black Widow spider minion crew' isn't a good idea, even though I think that would be fun."

"Not fun for me, considering that black widow female spiders eat the males," Peter said, a bit sheepishly from the raised eyebrow that Natasha sent his way. He quickly rambled on, "Did you know that black widow spiders are the most venomous spiders in North America? But their venom doesn't usually kill a person, but it definitely is super poisonous. There's also a red widow and a brown widow spider, which is pretty awesome, but no one knows about them."

"Guessing you know about spiders?" Natasha said, amused.

"Oh yeah, they're pretty cool," Peter said enthusiastically. "I tried figuring out what type of spider bit me, but I know that it's definitely not something cool like a black widow because I can't poison people, although that probably is a good thing because humans don't have venom glands, and if I actually had them, then I would need fangs and the fangs would need ducts to send the poison through them, and that would mean I would be just like the vampire in Twilight which is disgusting, and actually maybe not as cool as I first thought it would be and-"

He stopped. Natasha was barely holding back a full-blown smirk.

"What?" he definitely didn't mean to sound that indignant.

"Nothing," Natasha said innocently. "Just that it reminded me of a certain person."

He huffed, spotting a brief smile slip onto her face before she let the rest of the car ride pass on in comfortable silence. As Peter watched the car roll into the airport terminal with a big green sign that had a white four on it, Natasha suddenly spoke up again, her voice much gentler than the cool tone she usually had draped around herself.

"You know though, Stark's right." She braked, and the car jolted to a stop in front of the glass doors of the airport. "I can see it too."

"See what?" Peter asked, slightly startled.

"You're struggling to deal," she said bluntly. "Especially with everything that's going on in the past few weeks."

Peter stared at her, the short blond hair framing her face, the black sunglasses that sat neatly on the bridge of her nose. "That obvious?" he managed to say lightly. Inwardly, he winced.

All he wanted was to bury everything, bury the memories, bury the faces that seemed to mock him, and the last thing he wanted was everyone knowing that there was something wrong with him when certainly nothing life-changing happened.

"No no, you're quite disturbingly good at hiding it," she frowned. "You push down your feelings very well for a teenager. I just know because when you spend so much time with the team," she minutely paused, before going on as if she had never stopped in the first place, "you end up seeing the signs everywhere."

"...Thanks?"

She patted him on the shoulder as he opened the door with the duffle bag in hand. "But don't worry about it. Clint's had some of his own… experiences with evil brain-washing so you both should get along smoothly." She slid off her sunglasses, and he couldn't help but notice how sharp her eyes were, almost jade-like in their color and bluntness. Even harder to ignore was the clear warning in her eyes.

"Take care Spidey. And be careful." She grimaced, before softly saying, "Something's going to happen. I can almost feel it."

She didn't look back when she drove off, leaving him standing confusedly at the airport entrance.

* * *

 **Hope you guys are all safe, it's pretty insane everywhere. NY's basically shut down, and I'm pretty sure most, if not all, schools are reverting to online learning. Remember to stay inside and do social distancing because man, we seriously have to flatten the curve. Hospitals are already being overwhelmed here, and it's not good.**

 **On a lighter note, hope you guys also enjoy this chapter! I forgot to mention last time that Bag Man is actually a real thing. Check it out- it's a reference to the comics where Spiderman dons his best suit, the Paper Bag. Personally, I thought it was hilarious, so decided to reference it here. H** **opefully, I got the relationship between Peter and Tony somewhat accurately also, because their dad-son relationship is honestly the sweetest (and saddest) thing ever in the Marvel Universe.**

 **Btw, the fancy metal last chapter was Adamantium, congrats to anyone who guessed. ;) Thank you all who favorited, reviewed, and followed! And again, stay safe.**

 **Also, note to self. NEVER search up spider facts at 3 AM in the morning again.**


	6. Chapter 5

Peter was caught off guard when he realized that _Hawkeye_ had a family. An actual family, with three kids running around a rural farm that made for a strangely domestic scene. He had never seen Clint out of his suit before, and his ruffled shirt and friendly eyes made him seem so normal, it was actually strange.

Currently, he was helping Lila with her physics homework. She was not too much younger than him, but he could still make fun of her being a freshie because, well... why not? Making fun of freshmen was _fun_.

She sat crosslegged on the ground, chewing on the end of her pencil determinedly, staring at the problems in front of her.

"I hate projectiles," she sighed, throwing her pencil on the table frustratedly. "I hate physics, I hate school, I hate homework, I hate life-"

"Hey, this isn't too bad," Peter tried reassuring her. He picked up her chewed pencil, and tapped it on his nose thoughtfully, staring at the problems.

"Says you, genius kid," she grumbled. "And that's disgusting." She was eyeing the chewed part of the pencil that was currently on his nose.

"A little bit of spit doesn't hurt," Peter grinned. "Here, this is how you work these out."

He drew a lopsided circle and an arc next to it, signifying that it was supposed to be flying across the air. On the side, he wrote the numbers that were given in her textbook.

"So, you know how horizontal velocities don't affect vertical velocities, right?"

Lila just tilted her head, looking confused. How she had gotten this far without even knowing that simple fact, Peter had no idea.

"Oh… erm- well, think of it this way," he explained. "I just handed your dad a bow-"

"He's always carrying one around though," Lila argued, probably just to be frustrating.

"Fine," Peter sighed. "Your dad already has a bow and wants to shoot it level to the ground. The arrow's just going to be pulled down because of gravity right?"

"Yeah," Lila nodded. "There's always a vertical acceleration downwards... something like 10 meters every second?"

"Exactly," Peter grinned. "Well, what happens if your dad drops an arrow instead of just shooting it? Which one falls to the ground first?"

"That's easy," Lila frowned. "The arrow that Dad shoots is probably going to hit the ground last."

"Nope!" Peter said cheerfully. "They fall at the ground at the same time. It's because the vertical velocity, which in this case is zero meters per second in both situations, isn't affected at all by the speed that the arrow has in the horizontal direction."

"That's… really confusing."

"I know right? But that's how you can solve this problem," Peter explained. "See, you can divide the projectile into its vectors, or the speed that the balls are going vertically and horizontally-" he drew a right triangle and pointed to the two legs that weren't the hypotenuse, "and then you can use these individual velocities to find the time the ball would spend in the air."

He quickly scribbled an equation down and showed it to her. "Just find the time that the ball would take to fall to the ground, and that would be the same time that the ball also goes in the horizontal distance," he said. "Then, use that time to find the distance the ball travels."

Lila just groaned again. "I hate physics," she repeated.

"It just takes practice," Peter said sympathetically. "MJ always beat me up on how bad I was at English." He wrote down the other equation on the paper and handed it to her. "How about this," he offered. "You finish the problem, then we can take a break."

Lila perked up almost immediately. "Seriously?" she said excitedly.

"Seriously," Peter nodded. "You can er- teach me how you shoot a bow or something cool like that. It's all projectiles, anyways. Outside-of-the-classroom learning," he said.

"You're the best pseudo-babysitter ever," Lila beamed. She quickly went back to the worksheet to pour over the equations, calculator in hand.

* * *

"Teaching Peter our tricks of the trade, eh?" a voice said behind them amusedly.

Peter whipped around, too fast and too sudden. He inwardly cringed when he saw it was just Clint observing them from the distance, hands across his chest. From Clint's glance, it didn't seem like he missed that little detail.

"Hi, Dad!" Lila said cheerfully. "Peter sucks at shooting."

" _Hey!_ " Peter protested indignantly. "I just started learning five minutes ago!"

"And you suck!" Lila responded, grinning. In her hand, she held her bow loosely, like she had done this a million times before. On the other hand, Peter was clenching his bow so tightly that he was surprised that it hadn't snapped yet.

Then he noticed a running crack on the side of the wood. He quickly tried to loosen up his grasp before his prediction became true.

And then dropped the bow.

Clint snorted, and Peter flushed red. At this point, he was probably going hit the world record of having the most amount of mortifying moments in front of superheroes.

"Don't worry kid," Clint clapped him on the back. "When I first started, I nearly poked my eye out. It was pretty bad."

"You said the same thing to me," Lila pointed out crossly.

"Because it's true," Clint winked at her.

He adjusted Peter's grip on the bow. "Don't hold it so tight," he instructed. "Let the bow be an extension of your arm."

"That sounds like Gorden Ramsey, but with his knives," Peter randomly blurted out. "The whole let-the-knife-do-the-work spiel." He blushed again and tried to focus on holding the bow instead of saying more stupid stuff.

"Except bows are awesomer than knives," Clint said, looking amused. He turned to Lila again. "Sweetie, show him how a good bow-hold makes all the difference."

Lila drew back her bow carefully and aimed towards the center of the target. When she let go, the arrow made a _twang_ sound, sticking against one of the inner rings of the target.

"Nice job," Clint grinned at her. "Already beating most of the Shield agents, I see."

Lila beamed proudly.

"Of course, I have to take all the credit," Clint continued teasingly. "After all, we all know what you looked like when you tried shooting the bow the first time-"

" _DAD_!" Lila interrupted loudly, looking embarrassed. "Not in front of Tony Stark's intern," she whispered, unaware that Peter could still hear her whispering. Spidey powers were amazing.

"Alright alright," Clint conceded, looking down at her fondly. "You're the boss."

He turned back to Peter, a smile still gracing his lips. "You still want to give it a go?"

Peter blinked. "Now?" He was pretty sure that he was still holding the bow the wrong way, considering the way Clint was eying his hands again.

"Of course," Clint said easily, quickly shifting Peter's hands back to position again. "What's Stark's favorite quote again… something like you can't walk-"

"Sometimes you gotta run before you walk," Peter corrected.

"Yeah yeah, Stark nerdling," Clint brushed away. "Just don't try to shoot yourself in the eye. I'm pretty sure Stark will somehow manage to sue me if you go back to him missing an eye."

"But an eyepatch would look awesome," Peter said excitedly.

"It would," Clint grinned. "You would get all the ladies."

"I could like, draw an eye on the eyepatch, and pretend to be Mad-Eye-Moody for Halloween or something."

"Maybe not all the ladies," Clint corrected himself, looking even more amused.

"Just shoot already, Peter," Lila said impatiently, hopping up and down.

"Fine," Peter shrugged. "But if I completely miss, you better not make fun of me."

Judging on the glint in Lila's eyes, he was pretty sure that she was going to ignore that request. Inwardly rolling his eyes, he faced back to the target and aimed at the center, just as Lila had done.

In his mind eye, he constructed a mental estimation of where he would predict the arrow would fly. He could see that he was holding the bow a bit too high, considering that he was pulling back the arrow all the way, and from the slight strain in his arm, he could tell that it had a lot of horizontal momentum already.

He carefully inched the bow downwards, and finally, let go. The arrow struck right above the bullseye, close to Lila's arrow still embedded in the target.

"That's a first," Clint sounded surprised. When Peter turned back to look at both of them, they were staring at the target, looking astounded. Then Lila started applauding, looking impressed.

"How'd you do that?" she asked curiously. "It took me forever to get that close to the bullseye."

Peter shrugged. "I just… aimed," he said honestly.

Clint looked down at him, an eyebrow raised. "I would have assumed that this wasn't your first time shooting just based on your accuracy- but your bow hold is absolutely horrible," he admitted. "But damn, you have some good aim, kid."

"Thanks," Peter said, a bit shyly. He already had some experience of calculating and estimating velocities and momentum while swinging around in New York, because he literally was a moving pendulum and there was nothing more important than getting his calculations right from swinging place to place.

When he first started, that was the reason why he ended up face-planting multiple times into a wall. He couldn't tell what angle to release at or what his velocity was as he was flying through the air.

"Hey Lila, you want to let Dad show off a bit?" Clint said, a bit slyly.

Lila groaned. "You always show off though," she protested.

"It entertains Cooper and Nat though," Clint protested.

"You just like showing off," Lila stubbornly said.

"Fine, maybe just a bit," Clint relented, rubbing her head. She tried to duck under his hand, but failed and ended up looking extremely grouchy under her mop of messy hair.

Peter swore that he tried not to laugh, but he couldn't help but let a snort out.

Lila stuck out her tongue at Clint. "Aunt Nat is my favorite Avenger," she said while reluctantly handing over her bow.

Clint just grinned at her. "Oh surprise, she's my favorite too."

He turned to the target, notching in _three_ arrows in his bow. He tossed a smirk to Peter, who just looked at him wide-eyed before Clint carefully lowered his bow, aiming at the target. His eyes filled with concentration- the same concentration that Peter always found in Mr. Stark's eyes when he was working on a particularly tricky equation for his engineering stunts.

The arrows landed a couple of inches away from each other, all in a straight line, with the middle arrow at the bullseye.

"That's so epic," Peter breathed out. He watched as Clint quickly drew three more arrows and released them in quick succession, hitting each of the arrows that he had shot and driving them in the target further.

"Show-off," Lila said, but her eyes glittered with pride.

"As you can see," Clint said wryly, holding out an arm and drawing Lila in a half-hug, "Lila's my most outspoken fan."

Peter couldn't help but bounce on his toes. "Wait seriously, that's so cool," he excitedly said. "You had to distribute the momentum to each of the arrows perfectly so they wouldn't have uneven velocities and hit different parts of the target at the same time."

"Not more physics," Lila looked horrified.

"Physics is great!" Peter protested again. "That's how your dad can shoot from so far away." He waved his arms in front of him, trying to approximate a semisphere to represent the Earth. "He has to keep in mind the curvature of the Earth when shooting so far away as well as the wind-speeds and the friction between the arrow and the air, and there are so many components to making the shot _perfect_ -"

He shut his mouth quickly when he realized he was rambling again. Clint was looking at him appraisingly, looking impressed.

"Yeah, not much people know about that," he shrugged. "Takes a lot of years of experience to get the feel of how the surroundings are going to affect your shot."

Lila shrugged. "Physics," she said simply, and Clint chuckled.

"You devil," he swung her up and around before letting her land on the ground again. "You're supposed to be on the same side as me."

"Well, someone has to make sure you don't get a big ego," Lila said seriously, reaching up and tapping him on the nose. That was when Clint started to laugh in earnest, a sound that was a mix between a wheezing donkey that was somehow choking at the same time.

"Sweetie, you're unbelievable," he said, still laughing. He planted a brief kiss on her head. "Don't ever change, you hear me?"

* * *

It was the third night that Peter couldn't sleep, staring at the dark ceiling. His head was too filled with the memories of collapsing buildings and dark spaces, and the small room he was staying in always seemed so oppressive at night like the walls were inching closer and he couldn't do anything about it.

He turned around restlessly, trying to stop his frantically beating heart, before giving up his attempt to sleep altogether. He softly padded downstairs to the kitchen, hoping that the more open space would stop the fluttering in his chest and froze.

The light was already on in the kitchen, spilling out from the door that was opened a crack. Peter almost turned backward, but curiosity drove him towards the door, because who even would be up at 3 AM?

He peeked through the crack in the door and saw Clint staring straight at him. He nearly jumped out of his skin, heart pounding.

"Pete, you can come in," Clint's voice softly passed through the door, almost inaudible. "To be honest, I was kind of expecting you earlier."

Peter tentatively opened the door and crept inside, closing the door once he was inside. Clint was sitting at the table, looking tired and weary, and completely different from the man he had seen shooting with his daughter.

"You can join me," Clint said wryly, patting the seat next to him. "We can be the no-sleep buddies… make a whole club and everything."

Peter carefully sat down, observing Clint's baggy eyes, so similar to the ones he saw reflected in the mirror.

"Why are you awake?"

"Shouldn't I be the one asking you that?" Clint shot back good-naturedly. "I'm a grown-up so technically I can do whatever I want to do."

"Sor-"

"Nah, I was just joking," Clint reassured Peter. He sighed, passing a hand through his face. "I assume it's similar to why you're up at this moment. Nightmares, eh?"

"Yeah," Peter said softly, deciding that it would be safer to look at the table than Clint's probing stare. "It's not that big of a deal, I just-"

"First of all, it's a pretty big deal if it's keeping a teenage boy from sleeping," Clint interrupted. "So don't say that. And Stark already gave me the details."

"He did?" Peter looked back at him, startled.

"Yeah, he's kind of being a big mother bird right now," Clint cracked a weary smile. "It's always _did you feed Peter today?_ or _what's Peter doing right now?_ or _if I see him missing a limb, I'll feed you to Friday even if she doesn't have a mouth_."

"Oh… he hasn't really erm… talked to me much," Peter said awkwardly, wringing his hands. "He only er… texted me like two times."

"Because he's _Tony Stark_ , kid," Clint said, eyes understanding. "He's not really into the whole feelings thing- you're kind of pushed him out of his comfort zone. Not that I'm complaining, of course," he hurriedly added, seeing Peter's sheepish face.

"But anyway," he quickly changed the topic. "We're not here to talk about Stark, we're here to talk about you."

He folded his hands together like he was in church. "What's up?"

Peter hesitated. "I- erm… I can't sleep."

He wanted to face-palm when that tumbled out of his mouth because duh- he was in the kitchen with Hawkeye in the middle of the night, which _obviously_ meant that he couldn't sleep. But instead of laughing at him, Clint just nodded seriously, waiting for him to continue.

"It's just… a lot of feelings," Peter said truthfully. "I can't- I can't help but feel like I'm back under a collapsed building or back with- with Mr. Stern and my heart gets all," he made a fluttering motion with his hands, "jumpy, and I don't know. I just can't stand it," he finished softly. "My head keeps running through all these different scenarios, and it's always hovering over me- at school, at home, here."

"Restless?" Clint asked, his eyes calm and attentive.

"Yeah," Peter sighed. "If I don't do anything, the thoughts creep up faster." Like not Spidermanning for a whole week.

"And if you keep avoiding the thoughts, it'll keep festering," Clint said bluntly. "Denial only works short-term."

"I know," Peter whispered, feeling miserable. "I realized."

Clint softened. "I'm not saying that it's not a common mistake to make," he said gently. "But going through the motions of life only gives you hell instead of peace- that's why therapy is so effective at times. When you talk to someone about what had happened, you gain this sort of protective skin against the memory."

He shrugged. "It's called exposure therapy," he clarified. "There's also REBT, which helps change your style of thinking- that's more cognitive therapy. And then there's this weird one, known as EMDR, which somehow affects your brain by simulating your eyes."

He stuck out a finger and exaggeratedly moved his eyes around to follow his finger moving in front of him.

"How do you know all of this?" Peter said quietly.

Clint winced slightly, almost so slightly that Peter hardly even caught the motion. "I was… well, the kindest way to put it was that I kinda was spiraling," he said quietly. "Loki really messed with my head, and all I could see was blood for months afterward after the aliens came."

He stared at his hands resting on the table. "I- well, I was never going to go to treatment," he grimaced. "Tasha had to threaten to castrate me before I even stepped foot into a shrink's office."

Peter blinked.

Clint threw a sideways glance, and nearly cracked a smile. "It helps," he said quietly. "It doesn't seem that way at first, and who knows, it might never seem to work. Hell, it took me years before I was semi-functional and-" he gestured to himself mockingly, "-still can't sleep. But I'm still semi-sane with a wife that has the patience of a goddess and three wonderful kids I would never give up for the world."

He looked fondly at the closed door from the kitchen as if he could somehow see his family.

"You aren't so messed up yet, kid," he said gently. "It'll be worth it."

"I guess," Peter said hesitantly.

"Promise me you'll try," Clint shook his head, his eyes strangely serious. "You've been scaring the crap out of Stark, and sometimes I can see why. You have the self-preservation skills of an upside-down turtle."

"Can I at least be right-side-up?" Peter frowned.

He sighed when Clint didn't take the bait. "Fine," he grumbled. "I'll see what I can do."

"Awesome!" Clint made party hands in the air, a relieved smile on his face. "You've upgraded to right-side-up turtle! Congratulations!"

"My dream career," Peter shot back sarcastically.

"Your second dream career," Clint corrected, tired eyes glinting mischievously. "I'm stealing you and turning you into an archer so when you get back home, you can terrorize Stark with your newfound knowledge."

"Wait, I actually really want to do that," Peter said excitedly. "Can you please teach me?"

Peter was surprised that Clint's responding loud snort didn't wake up the rest of his sleeping family.

* * *

 **Man, I actually have to agree with Lila- physics is absolutely, terribly, horrific. It doesn't help that calculus brings physics to a whole new dimension of _what the serious heck_ , and yeah, it's currently killing me and my grades this year. All of the physics jargon is completely correct- for those of you who've already learned about projectiles, kudos to ya'll cause you'll definitely be able to understand all of that mess.**

 **I've always thought Clint was the more "human" one of the group, the one grounding everyone because in a group with supersoldiers, gods, and billionaires, the guy shooting the bow seems very very human. He doesn't have any special powers, except being a really good agent and shooting, which are talents he has to learn himself. So I definitely wanted to make him the one to kind of remind Peter that hey, he's just a kid, and he probably needs help- and he's also dad so he has more experiences with talking to kids.**

 **Psych stuff is also all correct- I always wondered how EMDR worked; some sources said that it was just placebo BUT tbh I don't think anyone 100% knows yet. It just works. \o/**

 **Stay safe all!** **Thanks for being patient with my slowness, and again, you all are awesome. :) BBQ weekend would be hilarious actually, but this is Avengers post-Civil war, and gotta keep it pretty tense for now. Tony's still kinda ishy with everyone, which is understandable, but he knows that they don't have bad intentions.**


End file.
